Customer Reviews

Koss CDR200 Dual Deck CD Recorder

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I'm glad to see KOSS has stopped making this waste of money machine.

All of the complaints about the recording side which you'll see in all of the other reviews are accurate: It is very picky about which CD-R's it will accept (rejecting about 1/4 of every pack I tried over the past 18 months), it forces a gap between tracks whether you want them there or not, it determines (based only on its mood) how much time it will allow you to record on each blank CD, and, most maddening of all, it keeps going into "recovery" mode, which basically means it's tacking on about 30 seconds of dead air after each "recovered" track. Since you can not control the record level, each tune is recorded at it's original level, and that varies from source to source--so your CD's play volume is all over the map if you use different sources. And lately it's not even putting a ceiling on the volume, so I get finished CDs with horrible distortion levels.

I won't be buying any more KOSS equipment, that's for sure. I'll spend the extra bucks for a decent recorder--and the KOSS is going out with Tuesday's trash.

I received this as a Xmas gift 3 years ago.
At first I was thrilled. It's fairly easy to use and flexible enough to allow recording from almost any source. I mostly wanted to burn my record collection to CD, but also make compilation CDs from all sources. I connected it to my home stereo and started burning.
So far, so good. Then the trouble started.
First, the playback drawer became stuck.
I had to manually pry it open and remove the CD.
Eventually the playback deck stopped working altogether. Which may have been a blessing in disguise as it saves me from having to ever pry another CD out of it.
After a year and a half or so the LCD screen went haywire, flashing like mad when the unit was turned off!
Three years on the recorder still works, but I'm buying a new preamp with CD burning software so I can run direct to my pc and reserve the Koss CDR200 for once in a while, non-essential uses.
Recording with this unit can be a bit tricky. If you wait too long in record/pause mode it will stop and you have to start over again. Mis-coordinating the start of an LP and the recorder sometimes results in the first second or two of music being cut off or a blank track number at the start of the CD.
Practice will iron out most problems and satisfactory result can be had.


product manuals are avaiable as PDF files via http://koss-av.com/operational-manual.htm

You might think I'm sour because mine just crapped out after 18 months (whereas I have the same amp and EQ I bought in 80 and 81, respectively....), but this just isn't worth the money. I bought the floor model, and every time I burned a CD, I wished I'd bought a more expensive model.

First of all, it doesn't have a recording volume pot, so you have to run it through a tape deck or something that does, so you can balance mix CD's to a consistent volume (in other words, different things are ORIGINALLY recorded at different volumes, particularly LP's vs. CD's. When you put a song from each back to back, it's really bad, unless you can balance the incoming volume. Which you can't with this.)

Also, even though the manual says you can do this, you can't make an exact copy of a CD. It ALWAYS puts a one second gap between cuts. So, if you're copying a symphony, there will always be a | break between movements. Or, heaven forbid you score a bootleg of a concert... Your only options are one 80 minute track, or lots of applause and cheering | and lots of applause and cheering bertween songs.

Recording is cumbersome, as well, but I've already bored you enough.

Finally, I almost always got "recovery" errrors... Don't know what they are, but it was disturbing.

I made some GREAT CD's with this, and was excited to buy it, but, all in all, I was disappointed that I spent $150 on it, and will definitely pay more for better features, and more convenience.

I've used one for about 6 months, copying LP's onto CDRW's, which I would then carry over to my PC, edit and split the tracks, then burn a final CDR from there. For that purpose, this was a more than satisfactory deck.

But then I encountered an absolutely atrocious design flaw. Eventually, everyone gets a bad or marginal burn. Problem: when you place a CD into this deck or power up the deck with a CD in it, it tries to read the basic CD/track info. During that time, the open/close button is disabled. The problem is that, if this initial read fails, the deck may reset and retry, and fail again, and THERE'S NO WAY TO STOP IT AND GET THE BAD CD OUT!

A call to Koss' service confirmed that there is no way to suppress or interrupt this process. They could only suggest that I send it in for service.

Now, as I said, sooner or later everyone does a bad burn. Every other CD/DVD deck I've ever used had SOME way to eject a bad CD.
This is an incredibly poor design and will, for many users, eventually be fatal.

My wife and I are professional musicians and own two of these units. We make our own CD's for demos and to sell at shows and have copied 100's of discs. These machines often work around the clock. They wre a great deal at $150.00 each, but I had to send back two that didn't work to end up with two good ones. They each have different quirks. For example, on one I can change the disc in one tray while the other is finalizing; on the other I can't. I also tried two of the RCA versions of this machine. Neither worked. In fact the drawers wouldn't open on one of the RCA's!
I am very grateful to the first reviewer. One of my Koss machines stopped working yesterday. I had to pick it up and shake it to get a tray to open! After reading the advice about Maxell discs, which I was using, I bought some Sony discs and now it is working again.
If you buy one of these machines test EVERY possible function including recording from all inputs as soon as you get it as the quality control is erratic.
As far as not being able to control the recording level is concerned, this is a problem when recording from analog sources such as tape and vinyl. I have to turn off my stereo speakers, crank the stereo amp to get a level, and then monitor with my wireless speakers from the Koss headphone output. These speakers have individual volume controls. You could also use headphones with a volume control or headphone mixer. I get excellent recordings this way.
All in all this machines are a great thing to own at the price, but it takes a few work arounds to use them successfully.

Me and a great buddy of mine went the same day to buy this item and both of our systems no longer worked after about 3 months, (actually my friend's system broke in 2mo) I will never purchase a KOSS product ever again.

When we first got our KOSS CDR200, we were excited about the prospect of being able to record off the air and to transfer our old vinyls to CDs.

However, we were initially disappointed with the failure rates of our audio CD-Rs. About half of them didn't work. After some research on the internet, we hypothesized that the brand of blank audio CD-Rs were to blame. At the web site www.cdrfaq.org, we discovered that the brand (Memorex) we were using were called "trashable." So we bought two good brands, TDK and Sony audio CD-Rs and so far, we have not had one single failure.

You must realize that the failures we had went as far as to get stuck in the drawer (pull the plug and the plug it back in, you can get it out), failure to finalize, failure to be readable in any drive except the recording drawer, and sometimes not even that! After changing the brand, no problem!

We are now glad we have this unit. Yes, a computer system could do better, but no system is better than the ease of use. Once you get used to reading and interpreting the instructions, it works great!

I (like many others I found out)made the mistake of buying a Koss CDR200. I did not use the unit much initially. When I started to use it the CDRW disc locked up in the B drive. I called Koss (a faceless company - must be a pure importer) and they said unplug the unit and plug it back in. It worked - that time. The second time it happened unplug-plug did not work. I called Koss and they said "sorry, unit discontinued, no replacement". Call this screw the customer. No place to repair it. No service information. No replacement unit available. I don't know how they get away with this as I thought all electronic products sold in the US were supposed to have some kind of parts and service availability for a certain number of years by law. I will never buy another Koss product and I will disparage their name anytime it comes up. Any outfit that can't even suggest where their product can be repaired (and this is only to release a disc from the tray)ought to be put out of business.

This item is not particularly user friendly when it works. However, mine went south (B drive) after only 6 months. Then I realized that there is only a 90 day warranty, which is lousy. So Koss gets a resounding "Boo!!" from me.

Based on the previous reviewer, I went ahead and purchased this item. I know that many of these burners seem to have occasional (or frequent) problems. I went ahead and risked getting a non-name brand and haven't regretted it for a second. This machines burns flawless CD's from just about any source. Soon, I will have all my tapes on CD and backup copies of my personal CD's. Get this burner!!