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anonymous 18 October 2004

Have you folks standardised on a good "reference" CD transport/DAC combination or one CD player to handle CD repro in your studio?

I've been searching for the ultimate in CD reproduction and have decided to go for the Apogee Mini-DAC product. Anyone have some strong recommendations for the transport + Coax digital cable?

I see the music stores Sweetwater and the like marketing a pro unit such as the Alesis MasterLink, which does other things like record to HD and CD24, or one of the more industrial grade from Tascam/Sony.

Thanks in advance for your help!

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anonymous Mon, 10/18/2004 - 19:17

Dave and DJ, thank you for your responses. At around $800 (Sweetwater), how can one lose with the Masterlink?

Hopefully, some of the Mastering shops will begin to take CD24 seriously and will have one of those on hand.

I guess the heart of my question centers around playback Do you currently, after the mixdown is burnt to "Redbook" 44k/16, do you utilise a Hi-Fi player or DAC to play them back or simply use the CD burner as a playback device?

This might be a sep "consumer versus studio" rant, but...
I'm convinced that the D/A chain is really important, but not a load of listeners can afford to shell out $2,000 (or $20,000 for a Linn CD12) on some of these boutique players.

NOT as important as the source and microphone is important to any track that's being recorded :)

AudioGaff Mon, 10/18/2004 - 21:41

Besides the SCSI I have from Glyph and the Duplicator that is more akin to a SCSI version of the Masterlink with no DSP, I gots the HHB 850 and the new Tascam CDRW750.

The Masterlink is really a missed boat and pretty close to being obsolete at this point as many people can burn mixes as CD-ROM data to be sent to mastering thus skipping the whole 44.1 redbook limitations and thereby getting a higher bit rate and sampling rate to the mastering engineer. I do both, provide a CD-ROM and also a redbook CD-R to mastering as well as for client reference.

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