Very user friendly.Adding volume on recordings.Wide monitor and well viewable VU meter.

Noisy tray ooeration.Slow operation-responses(TOC reading,settings)

Well,I dont claim that the PDR-W739 is the flawless,super professional recorder.If you are looking for digital copies of superb quality-even better than the original-you should be looking at equipment in a much higher price range. This recorder is basically for the mainstream user.B U T,it will "save" your vinyl and tape collection and produce quiet good copies of original CD's easilly.The recording quality is good,especially when you only use the 1x speed.There is a slight difference in quality using different brands of CD-R discs,but as long as they are labeled with "Audio use only",the pioneer recognize them all(Not so with the Philips CDR 770 i owned,which more often than not responded with "wrong disc"for no reason)I recommmend using following brands :Pioneer,Sony,Phillips.As for analogue recordings,i am more than satisfied.For example,I recently recorded through the RCA of my Nokia Digital Satellite reciever(which unfortunately isnt equipped with a digital output?!!)an MTV Unplugged TV show and then compared my recording with the original CD on the market(borrowed from a friend).NO need to buy the latter.My analogue recording was better than expected,almost as good as the real one!All in all the PDR-W 739,is worth its money.

Similar Products Used:

Philips CDR-770.Sold it after 3 months of use

Fairly easy to use once you get used to everything.

Plastic trays, clunky operation.

I love this thing! My vinyl has become the "Master Source" for a growing # of cd's. I found the manual pretty easy to understand and the actual operation of the unit just a little bit more involved than a run-of-the-mill cd player. GOOD STUFF! Here's a HOT TIP for those that haven't figured this out yet: If your puttng your VINYL ON CD don't burn it directly onto a cdr. Burn it onto a cdrw. That way if your vinyl skips you don't ruin a $2 cdr. You just stop the recording, erase the last track, fix the vinyl (hopefully), and start where you left off. When you have things the way you want them, "finalize" the cdrw, put it into the "multi-changer" side, then burn THAT onto a cdr. The cdrw will cost $10-$15 but you'll save that, and more, in no time.

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none

Making "mix" cds, sound reproduction, Functionality

Noisy tray operation (tray is plastic-urgh!!), Manual not detailed enough about functions, and TOC read is slow.

This cd recorder is the first one I have ever used. I am not sure if others are any better or worse. However, I have found the spund reproduction to be flawless. I cannot tell the difference between the master cd and the copy when comparing the two (neither can my girlfriend!).

Recording from vinyl has been great. The cd copies sound more detailed and with less noise. However, be warned, this player cannot determine when a track ends because of noise the stylus generates between tracks. So, your cd copy will only display one track although the whole album has been recorded! Although not mentioned in the manual, I discovered that if you hit the pause button on the cd player between tracks, that second or two of silence will result in the player assigning a new track number on the disc.
This cd recorder has many features too long to list here. However, one feature I must mention is this recorder allows you to program tracks from the three-disc side ( a stacking tray configuration instead of a carousel) and will then burn them onto the cd-r or cd-rw. Nice for making "mix" cds.
One word of caution: when turning on the player for the very first time, do NOT press any of the buttons until after the unit's microprocessor has "booted" itself ( just like a computer-about a 2 minute wait). Otherwise, the whole unit will not function. Also, this is not mentioned in the manual!! So take heed! ( I found this out the hard way, but Crutchfield was gracious in replacing the unit at no cost to me!)

Overall, this is a good product with very good sound reproduction and functionality. Just wish the manual was more detailed.

Similar Products Used:

None

2x recording speed,all-in-one solution to recording problems

no CD text (but is on the PDRW839), good for mix CD's

I've used other CDR machines, but found this one to be the best of the bunch. Mix CD's are a breeze, and copying from other formats ie.MiniDisc & Vinyl are easy (make sure you change the silence threshold if copying from vinyl!). Cd replay is OK, but nothing to shout about. Overall, I've been impressed.

Similar Products Used:

LG ADR620, Philips CDR760