Masterlink by Alesis is a cool product....

:)

Make that two votes for the Masterlink. There is really nothing that compares for the price which is now right at $1000.

I had a Masterlink briefly. The reasons for selling had more to do with how i work, rather than an indictment of the product - turned out i didn't really need it because I found I could send 24 bit stereo files as burned AIFF or Sound Designer data CDs directly to the mastering facility I use. But the ability to archive 24 bit audio onto a stable medium (CD as opposed to flimsy DAT) is very attractive. :cool:

Three votes for the Masterlink.

I use it with external converters and clock, which makes a difference, but its internal converters and clock are decent and sound better than most DAT machine converters+clock.

A very, very handy machine for mixdown plus immediate, quick burning of a Red Book CD for checking the mix elsewhere or a high-res 24/96 CD for the mastering facility or for storage & backup.

Definitely lots of bang for the buck.

Jon

Thanks guys. That Alesis Masterlink almost seems too good to be true. Everyone seems to like it. I will definately look into that.
Just out of curiousity...when will 192 kHz recording sampling rates be available? Or are they already? The only reason I ask is because I've read that Rupert Neve has said that until digital reaches 24/192 it will still be inferior to analog.
thanks again.
peace,
tl

Four votes for Masterlink (this thread is starting to sound like an Alesis ad). While at the 2000 AES show I asked Bruce Maddocks (at the time chief engineer at Capitol) what one piece of gear I should buy, he said Masterlink was the bomb. I have not been disappointed and I use it every day. I caution users from relying on it as a storage unit; while it has a pretty good sized HD, it will need to be backed up regularly (twice in the last three months it has "frozen" while trying to burn CDs from data on the HD, requiring a reinitialization; Alesis says this is "normal"). Trust me, real-time backup (the only option with this unit, as its HD can't be recognized by external computers for a simple data transfer) is a pain. If anyone at Alesis is reading this thread, it would be a nice feature to be able to access the HD via USB or Firewire for backups.

Notwithstanding this limitation, it's a great unit and a big time-saver in my studio.

Wow. After ten months of daily use, our Masterlink has never lost any data. The only complaint I would make is that it has trouble reading CDs burned with other CD burners. It always reads its own CDs, CDs from other Masterlinks, and commercial pressed CDs just fine.

Jon

Jon -

The problem with my Masterlink was that it would freeze up while trying to render tracks at the front end of the "Create CD" process. The unit would stop 0:02 into the first track and simply lock up; it wouldn't even let me eject the blank CD! I called Alesis and they instructed me to shut the power down, power back up, then reinitialize the HD (this is where I lost all the data stored in the unit...). This has happened twice now in three months, including during mixing of a recent album project. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone else has had this problem with their Masterlink.

Yes, Masterlink or The Tail by [="http://www.bertschelectronics.com/page3.htm"]Bertsch Electronics[/]="http://www.bertsche…"]Bertsch Electronics[/] are the ones to check out first.

If you feel rich, check out Fostex [[url=http://="http://www.fostex.c…"]DV-40[/]="http://www.fostex.c…"]DV-40[/]

/Mats

One more vote for Masterlink. I burn a CD 24 for every mix (in 24bit/48kHz) and my mastering guy puts it straight into Sonic from there. It also gives me the opportunity to listen to my mixes at 24 bit at my home. I would recommend to put in a 30gig drive, it gives you about 53 hours of 16bit/44.1kHz recording time.