Customer Reviews

Philips CDR785 3-CD Integrated CD Recorder

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

 

 

Do not buy this product. I had a Pioneer which worked rather well, but I decided to upgrade my CD recorder since I often compliled new CDs for my restaurant. Unfortunately, this purchase was a major disappointment. Although it is fairly easy to program the music; the recording part is very frustrating. For example, if you are recording from an external source, say a carousel-type CD player, you cannot set the program, leave for 80 minutes, come back and enjoy a new CD. Why? Because the record function stops after 1.8 seconds. Should the CD player change CDs within the carousel the recording will stop.

I called the Philips hot line for help, but they could only tell me, "sorry that's the way it was designed." Another problem occurs with internal recording. Sometimes the machine acts like it has the voodoo. Inexplicably the recording will stop (you can tell when the timer stops), but the display reads that recording is in progress. This freezes the machine and prevents you from doing anything else. You must remove the plug to move forward and sometimes that doesn't even work!

There are better machines out there, find them and buy them. Ignore this turkey.

This cd recorder is one of the better ones I have used. It is not only great for making compilations from cd's, but also excellent for recording live. It has provisions for RCA type analog, 1/4 inch analog, digital coax, and digital optical recording. I run a sound board and have recorded several shows direct from the mixer. I love the auto level control. If the recording gets loud, it quiets it down. If it gets quiet, it brings it up. It makes for a great finished product. I always get a ton of compliments on the sound quality. The fact that it includes a 3 disc changer is great. It is a very useful product. The complaints that I have heard dont hold up if you read the instructions. While it is a little complicated to record from an external source, it's not the nightmare I have heard it described to be.
I recomend this product for anyone looking for a home audio recorder thats dependable and a good price.

I bought this unit used, and received no owner's manual with it. I thought this would be a potential problem, but so far I've been proven wrong. It's very easy to figure out just by trial and error and some guesswork. Also a very inexpensive product in comparison with the others out there. It also does well with hours of extended use. It also reproduced a severely scratched cd onto a CDR with no problem.
On the downside, it has a low I.Q. as far as machines are concerned; i.e. it has a tendency to get "confused" and freeze up to where all you can do is turn off the unit, unplug it, and try again. However, 90% of the time, I've had no problem with cd burning. The best you can do is be patient, enter commands very slowly, and it should work fine. Also problematic is the fact that it rejects perfectly good CDR's for no apparent reason. Out of a pack of 50 Memorex CDR's, it rejected about 15. All you can do when this happens is put in a new CDR and it'll work fine.
Overall, this is a decent unit for the price.

Ours worked well at first and we loved being able to duplicate CDs for use in the car, but after maybe two years of very very very very light use, the recorder drawer refused to open. My subsequent research on the internet revealed that this player is known for this defect. Indescribably annoying. I don't even want to drag it in for repairs because even on the off-chance they do fix it, which in my experience is a rarity, I am quite confident the player will break again due to whatever the design defect is. Stay away! I will never again buy a Philips appliance, and they were formerly a name I trusted.

I've owned this unit for several years and, unfortunately, the cd technology has passed it by and made it OBSOLETE! If you want to burn blank cd's, it will only work with cd's of 16x speed or less! Tried to find a 16x or less cd lately? Good luck. Maybe you can find them online and maybe they'll work or maybe they want.
I've spoken with Philips customer service and they were of NO HELP. They kept saying "it SHOULD work with any cd". It doesn't.
If you want a cd player it works fine, but don't buy it if you want a burner.

-Philips have repackaged this unit into a new case, but as far as I can tell, it has not changed functionally.
-Last I read...it didn't have fade in and fade out. You can do both by manually adjusting the record volume in real time.
-Philips says you need to use their CD-R media, which by-the-way costs twice as much as any other. Its just not true.
-The analog recording sounds just as good as the digital recording. I can't tell the difference and I have good gear.
-The interface can become confussed on rare occassion. In which case you need to unplug it and plug it back in (just switching off won't do).
-The unit is essentially two seperate pieces of hardware with one integrated interface. You can NOT shuffle or program all 4 CDs together. You are either playing the CD changer, OR the recorder. However, recording from the 3 CD changer is quite easy.
-The unit does quite a lot! but you will have to experiment to figure it out. i.e. using track edit you can combine tracks, but there is no mention of this in the manual

I have had this recorder changer for 5 years and have used it heavily. I have just completed archiving almost four thousand LP and cassette albums (approximately 6000 individual LPs and cassettes), as well as making fair use copies of CDs for my car player. It has been an excellent unit and is still going strong. I have not had many of the problems that some others have complained. It has many virtues and relatively few flaws.

I live in a high dust area and with just regular simple cleaning, it has continued to perform well, while I have gone through two DVD players in the same time. It plays CD-Rs and CD-RWs with no problem, even non-audio CD-Rs copied on my computer. HOWEVER it will only record on the more expensive Audio or Music CD-Rs and CD-RWs. Although the manual says it will only use Phillips media, this is not true. I have had no problems with Sony or Maxell (about a 1% failure rate) and few problems with Memorex and the Walmart off brand (about a 4% failure rate) CD-R audio discs. These usually are failures to initialize or "disc error". Texting is possible but for me is too much trouble for the benefit. Sound quality of the copy is excellent, both in the first generation (digital) and second generation (analog) recordings.

The machine does have some quirks. It is fairly sensitive to voltage fluxuations when in the record mode, especially in the first ten minutes of deck operation. This results in a skip recorded to the end of the disc, ruining the disc if it is a CD-R, and requiring an erase and re-record of the material when using a CD-RW. I have solved this by playing a CD prior to beginning a record session. The unit will occasionally "freeze up". This is remedied by unplugging the unit for about a minute. This has only happened to me about a dozen times in five years. You can not finalize or erase from the remote. Recording from analog sources require you to manually add the tract markers from the remote. This cannot be done without the remote. The changer operation, while quieter than some contemporary machines, is noisier than the new Sony changer (not a recorder) in my daughter's system. There is no changer noise recorded on the target disc when recording a program from the changer side, though. And the CD to CD copying is only at 2X. Also, if you want to do any electronic cleanup of the cassette or LP, you will have to use a CD-RW or use 2 CD-Rs and use the program on your computer to re-record the "cleaned" files. What you get from the recorder itself is a 100% exact copy of what is on the tape or LP surface, "pops", "ticks" and all.

All in all, this machine has been a workhorse and an excellent purchase. It is a shame that Phillips has discontinued it.

I AM VERY PLEASED WITH MY PHILIPS CD RECORDER. IT WAS AN EXCELLENT PRICE; I FOUND IT IN EXCELLENT CONDITION; IT RECORDS BEAUTIFUL MUSIC;AND IT ARRIVED ON TIME AS PROMISED. I WOULD DEFINATELY ORDER VIA AMAZON.COM AGAIN AND I WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM BUYING FROM BIL1953 IN THE FUTURE.....THANKS AGAIN

Absolutely outstanding service. Hope to do business again.
Cannot thank you enough! We ran into a few snags in the beginning
NOT the fault of either of us, and she was amazingly concerned
and overwhelmingly helpful.

Follwing instructions is a must on this one.

Once you understand the mechanics then the rest falls into play. This is by far a very nice machine.