New Wave Outpost Forum

I am thinking of getting the sony rcd w500 5cd player plus 1cdr/cdrwchanger/recorder from cruchfield. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-terOH21XlC ... =sony+w500 I was told that I can transfer any source of music be it from a album, cassette, ect. to a cd, which is what I am looking to do. Does anyone have this or know anything about it? I am not crazy about the 5 cd carriage but I am really looking for the recording end of it. It also plays mp3s.

Hot Damn!! That is exactly what I'm looking for, too. I'll wait for feedback.

Glad you posted that Marie. Thanks.

What you do is hook it up to your stereo system, preferably through your cassette ins & outs as it needs a playback loop and a recording loop. The recorder will record from vinyl but it will not assign track numbers, so you will have to press the track number on the remote for the tracks to be imprinted on the cd-r. You would do this as each song ends while playing on the turntable. Wait until you can no longer hear the song and then press track 1 for track 1, etc. If you hear track 2 start, you will be too late![V]

Let's say your vinyl record has five tracks on Side A, the cd-recorder will burn all five tracks onto the cd-r but it will register it as one track only. The reason for this is that there is constant surface noise from the stylus in the vinyl groove, so the cd-recorder "thinks" it is all one track. In other words, there is no actual silent breaks between tracks (on vinyl) which is necessary for the recorder to assign track numbers during recording. Recording from cds does not have this problem as there are actual silence breaks between cd tracks.

I recommend that you initially record onto a cd-rw so that you can erase it if you make mistakes. Otherwise, you'll trash several cd-rs before you get the hang of assigning track numbers. Once you are satisfied with the recording on cd-rw, then transfer it to a cd-r (which cannot be erased, btw). It is an extra step but well worth it. Also, make sure you clean the vinyl really good to wipe away dust and static electricity which can distort the sound of the recording. If your vinyl has many pops and clicks, you may want to pass altogether or find a computer program that you can run the cd-r through to get rid of that noise. It will take some practice using a program like that.

Happy recording!

that looks cool, but out of my price range.
i still need a record player, my records are sitting there waiting and waiting to be turned into mp3's.
i just cant afford all the equipment to transfer them.

good luck if you get it.

you may be better served getting one of the old philips cdr's available for about $150 on ebay. I use one exclusively. I just upgraded my turntable to a digital turntable (stanton str8-80 about $150 used on ebay) and got a nice digital cable to hook the two together and it sounds awesome. I do most of my dubbing in the tv room while the wife watches TV. I record onto cd-rw and then put it into i-tunes and burn a cd-r from there. I do this because the blanks are way cheaper for computer burning than the blanks for cdr burning. for the cdr burner you must buy blanks that are labelled digital audio. regular old 100 cd blanks for $10 won't work in those units.

anybody ever find a way to handle album art? 12x12 scanners are very rare and very expensive. anybody do anything different?

as for anybody that needs stuff ripped, i guess i could volunteer. email me and we'll talk.

bv

Actually if you have a computer and a turntable you don't need anything so expensive. I used the Magix Audio Cleaning Lab to transfer nearly 300 LPs and 100 casettes to CD. You set up your turntable through a tuner/amp and use a stero cable splitter to connect the REC to your sound card imput. This program allows you to real-time record your analog tracks to the computer and convert them to digital tracks. The best part is you can remove hiss and scratches (largely) with the software as well as add effects to improve the sound (e.g. digital compressor) to the track before burning it. It has worked great and costs about $40.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 3713448628

When you say digital turntable, are you referring to the digital turntables that use a laser and don;t touch the recrod, and are essntially without any surface noise? The ones I think of, from Japan, are close to $20,000 at this time, so if there is something else out there "digital" I would like more details?? I'd love to get the fully digital one that can play vinyl, free of any noise, because the laser can scan the top of the groove that has never been touched by the stylus.

They are just so expensive now.

grunch-

not that lucky..this turntable is a pretty good model, but the needle still touches the record..it has a digital output on the back panel which sends a nice clean amplified signal to the cdr burner. the wild card is how clean the source material is. fortunately, the records i have are pretty clean.

a laser turntable?..now that's decadent..and my wife would have my ass if i ever spent that kind of money!!

bv

[quote][i]Originally posted by Grunch[/i]
<br>When you say digital turntable, are you referring to the digital turntables that use a laser and don;t touch the recrod, and are essntially without any surface noise? The ones I think of, from Japan, are close to $20,000 at this time, so if there is something else out there "digital" I would like more details?? I'd love to get the fully digital one that can play vinyl, free of any noise, because the laser can scan the top of the groove that has never been touched by the stylus.

They are just so expensive now.
[/quote]


Grunch:

You'd be out a bunch of money and not be any closer to noiseless vinyl. You're thinking of the ELP Laser turntable, and can now be had for the bargain price of about $11,500.00 U.S (base model). For that you get a turntable with the ability to play records of any color (as long as their black, the laser can't read colored/clear records), and while you can redirect the laser to part of the groove untouched by a regular stylus, it's hardly noise free. The turntable comes with a VPI record cleaning machine to minimize the dust/dirt/noise but it will still be there. That combined with the fact that the electronics in the unit are now approaching 15 years old and the units suffer from poor build quality, it's a big waste of money. In fact, I read somewhere they use staff on an on call basis to assemble the units as orders trickle in. In the end, the only real advantage is that you won't have any wear on your vinyl, no matter how many times you play them.

Better to go buy a more traditional turntable & kickass pre-amp, you'll get better sound and have money left over to do the bar scene for a year.


<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/dbince/eight.gif"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/dbince/spinning6.gif">

marie3, I bought the Sony player you are inquiring about, and I'm very happy with it. Like devildog said, if you record a whole side of a vinyl record, the recorder will look upon it all as one track, but I'm the type that records songs here and there, not album sides, so it was fine for my purposes. There is a plug-in in the back of the unit to record directly from an analog source, but if it's just your turntable, you'll need to pass it through a power amp of some sort (otherwise you won't hear a thing on the CD, I found that out the hard way). The recordings will pick up every hiss, crack, and pop, some you probably weren't aware of, so it is a good idea to make sure your vinyl is as clean as can be. There are always computer programs you can get, such as Goldwave, to help clean up those noises by downloading the songs into your computer, using the program, and burning them back onto CD. It's time consuming though, so be prepared.
All in all, it's a really fun toy to have, marie3, and I recommend it. I don't regret the purchase at all; it's given me back some of my music that would have just sat on the shelves otherwise.

I've got a first generation Phillips cd recorder that I've been using since 1999. I did a ton of analog recording on it (albums only, never figured the cassette hookup,) and still use it occasionally today. It has been largely replaced by the Plus! Analog Recorder that came as a part of my Dell computer. I hooked my turntable up through a pre-amp, hooked it into the sound card and I've been in vinyl heaven ever since. It not only records, it also cleans. I don't consider myself an audiophile and apparently my friends don't either because they've raved about how clean it makes the old albums sound. Several of them are kicking themselves for throwing out the old record collections, but those who kept them around are most happy with the results.

[quote][i]Originally posted by skinnytie[/i]
<br>marie3, I bought the Sony player you are inquiring about, and I'm very happy with it.

Thank you skinnytie! I was hoping someone had used this. I figured I can even record from the television because I have that hooked up to my stereo system. The digital cable has an alternative station I listen to alot.[:D]

sure you can, marie3! I even recorded audio excerpts from DVD using the thing. However, when recording from TV, be careful, because now you bring unwanted hum into the picture (another thing that certain programs can get rid of or lessen).

These are all great...here's what's working for me at the moment...I have a turntable...thank you BudVerge...I come out of the headphone jack of my receiver and go directly into the line in of my sound card, a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz...get a decent software recorder, anything really, I use the Turtle Beach program but you can actually use Windows sound recorder and you can just record as you play directly to disc. If it's a wav, you can easily convert it. It's really simple and can be done at little expense. You can EQ and level everything out of the receiver...my Styx albums never sounded so good!!!!![:D]

I actually really appreciate this post. I hate to admit this, but I may as well just come out and say it: I've never learned how to covert my vinyl collection (I'm still a collector) to CD, either through a computer or a CD-recorder like you're discussing. It's why I never got involved with the mixed-CD exchanges going around. However, I could still make you a heck of a mixed cassette.

I've literally been stuck in the 80's with my technology (I only got a personal PC a little over a year ago). i found your input useful - maybe it'll convince me to go ahead and join the rest of civilization.