Customer Reviews

Sony RCDW500C Compact Disc Player / Recorder

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(36)

 

 

When it works it's an awesome piece of Sony engineered home audio recording equipment...When it doesn't it's scrap pile. I can sympathize why some reviewers might have chucked theirs in the dumpster...

The first one I bought had some serious locking up issues;It just malfunctioned on the same day I purchased it.It even trapped one of my cd's inside;to retrieve the cd back was no small feat without almost busting a knuckle.As I found out after removing the cover that space for the elevator/built in cartridge exchange mechanism is pretty tight. If you ever get a cd stuck in there, good luck!I immediately exchanged it for one that worked properly at my local electronics dealer.

This one has worked flawlesly for me for the past two years without failure ! I have not encountered any finalizing issues. Sony has crammed the RCDW500C with loads of features and then some. The only minor complaints I have is that you have to really read the manual from top to bottom,left to right, then try to memorize what some of it's hidden functions are to get the most from this unit. The flourescent digital readout display is not user friendly. Also, the internal cd exchanging mechanism is very noisy and clunky for being a Sony.Previously, I owned a Philips carousel model that was extremely quiet and smooth in it's mechanical operations and playback/recording functions.The downside of the Philips model was that it lacked the 4 times recording speed and the six cd holding capacity that I'm thrilled about with the Sony! Yet, it's(Philips) flourescent display readout was extremely user friendly and easy to read.It literally would tell you in text exactly what you needed to know and what function it was performing or instruct you what you needed to do to achieve optimum recording results.It would guide you practically step by step in words on the display and not numbers or codes. The Sony doesn't---it's all just digital display numbers and codes(save that Sony instruction manual and guard it with your life!!). However, it gets the job done and then some with flying colors...I use mine mainly for vinyl to cd-r transfers and the results are awesome! Sonically, the music sounds much more crisp, clear and sharp than the original analog source.I don't even use the SuperBit Mapping feature to enhance the sound;doesn't need it.Also, the fact it can hold 6 cds for playback is incredible and versatile. Some of the functions, whether necessary or mere bells and whistles, are a pleasure to have and use.

If the readout display was easier to read,certain "hidden" button/rotary knob functions better laid out on the unit's fascia and the exchange mechanism quieter, this would definitely qualify as Sony's flagship CD-R machine and get a 5 star vote from me...

Let me echo the other comments here and say that this is a great CD recorder. The user's manual, though, is awful -- Sony should be ashamed for putting out a manual that's confusing, skimpy and almost worthless.

REMEMBER: Buy CD-R MUSIC discs, not regular CD-R discs (they won't work -- as the manual not-so-clearly points out.)

I owned a Philips CD burner for five years before it petered out, dying a little at a time for about a year. When it would no longer reliably record I took it back to Sears, where I had an unexpired warranty for shop service. It couldn't be repaired and was no longer available (Philips quit making them a couple years ago) so I bought one of these, the only other CD player-recorder I could locate in the marketplace.

There are many similarities between this player and the Philips, especially the way it burns CDs. I made two new ones the first evening I had the thing out of the box. It tooks about 15 minutes with the instructions to figure out how to make one new CD from tracks on each of two prerecorded originals. Sony could have made that process a little easier but it wasn't hard to figure out. You have to toggle between two pages in the manual until you learn the process.

When you combine tracks from one of more CDs on the new one you're burning (there are five players available and, therefore, you can record from five CD sources at once) it will only record at real time. For most CDs that's 80 minutes or less. I don't know if that matters to you. When you record CD to CD it will do it in faster time. Based on those I've burned so far, it appears to transfer the signal in about one-third of recorded time. There is a process to perform automatic finalization I haven't learned yet. Manual finalization takes a minute or so.

One big improvement I've noticed is the stuff I recorded at the end of my Philips player's life -- some of which had noticeable noise on the surface when I played them in the car and often would not play in lesser machines -- sound great when I play them on this one. It make take 10 seconds for the Sony to read the first track but once it gets started it sounds every bit as good as the original.

I made CDs from all my cassettes with my Philips player so there's nothing left to record with the Sony. I've burned several CDs on this machine sourced from old LPs that were never released on CD. It's not difficult to do this, although it requires rapt attention since you have to manually track your CD.

It appears the digital signal increases the music signal more than the surface noise, which is sometimes less evident than others. I know you can acquire noise reduction technology and people that are going to make lots of CDs from LPs should consider acquiring that. I don't have it and am not unhappy with my results.

I learned last time that the digital signal makes everything larger than on the original source. I have some noticeable tape his on CDs I made from cassettes, especially at the beginning. Still, it's better to have the digital source available since you can always remaster them at a lower level.

All things considered, I've found the Sony CD burner easy to use, has good results, and sounds great when playing conventional prerecorded CDs or those I made on my last machine. So far it's done everything I've asked of it in spades. I paid $300 for mine at a national chain electronics store that advertised the lowest price, so if you can find one here for $250 and get it shipped cheaply, you're doing good.

The place I bought mine offered a five-year warranty for about $80. My prior experience taught me that is an essential purchase with one of these. If my experience this time is same as last, when this one conks out in a few years, Sony will no longer be making it.

A caveat about bad performance: in my experience, there have only been one or two instances when my machine did not work perfectly and defied explanation as to why that occurred.

I chalk up these rare instances to high humidity or an electronic malfunction the machine does not report. The most common cause for non-starts is a code that indicates the machine is not stable. In those cases I used one of the other drawers for the original CDs and performance is fine.

Most of the time the reason for inadequate performance is related to one of two causes:

-- The recording you are trying to make exceeds the 80 minute capacity of the music CD.

-- You are trying to record on a nonmusic, or data, CD.

I've found only two brands of music CDs (note they must be music CDs) work every time without question -- Sony Music (the silver ones, not the colored ones) and Maxell CD-R Music. This became a big problem for my former Philips CD burner the longer I owned it, so I expect it will become one with this machine, too.

I bought this recorder in april of 2005 after my previous recorder,a HARMON KARDON BRAND, stopped working(5 years)and was not worth fixing(too much money).Like other reviewers, i had no choice but to buy this sony because i could not find any other brands for sale(i have acess to all major sellers of cd recorders).After 8 months of operation and many discs burned,i really don't have any complaints.It is not complicated if you read the manuel CAREFULLY!! The fact that it is a 5-disc player makes it much easier to mix a cd using 1 track from each disc(my first one was a single tray which was not fun!!!)I ALSO USE THIS RECORDER TO MAKE MIXES OF MUSIC DVD(MANUEL RECORDERING, SO BE SURE TO GET THE LEVEL CORRECT, OR YOUR RECORDING WILL BE DISTORDED.IT IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERY DVD OR TAPE SO USE A BLANK CD-RW FOR PRACTICE BEFORE YOU START THE FINAL COPY.ALSO USE THE FADE IN-- OUT BUTTON FOR LIVE RECORDINGS, AS I FIND IT HANDY FOR PAUSING BETWEEN TRACKS. I far as the finalizing process is concerned,i have not had any problems with this unit,which is a major complaint of other reviewers.I use 3 to 4 different brands of CD-r blanks and always buy 80 minuets.I always record between 75 and 79:57 on the disc because if i am paying for 80 i should get 80,right!! Make sure you buy blank discs that say DIGITAL AUDIO under the CD LOGO.ANY OTHER WILL NOT READ,BUT YOU KNOW THAT ALREADY.Here is my one problem with this recorder. After i finalize a disc and play it back,on any given number of tracks,there is a static underneath the song that makes it unbearable to listen to.It is not every disc i make and sometimes not every track.I called sony and tried thier recommendations for a solution(magnetic static due to other audio/video componets so i moved it away from my other equipment,and try unplugging it for a minute,but both did not work.)I wonder if anyone else is having this problem and if so,can you offer advice on this issue.Other than that problem,i would give this product 5 stars but because of this,it gets 3 stars.

I'm revisiting to update my earlier 1-star review. Since posting a few months ago, I, too, figured out that the finalization problem only occurs when you try to record over 74 minutes of music onto a disc. Since that realization, I've been able to successfully finalize every disc I've recorded.

I'm still only going to give the unit 3 stars (and I'm leaving the earlier 1-star review) because a) the unit should be able to record up to the full capacity of the disc, and b) given that it can't, the instruction manual should clearly point that out. You shouldn't have to fumble around wasting time (and wasting discs) until you stumble upon the fact that you have to keep the recording time below 74 minutes. A very bad documentation flaw. Luckily I figured it out before I returned the unit in disgust.

Beyond the finalization issues, the only other problem I have is the unit's multi-disc playback capabilities. When I'm playing multi-discs randomly (this is how I listen to the unit 90% of the time), it's VERY annoying that the unit has to re-read each disc every time it reselects it. Causes loooonnngg silences between songs. No, not the worst problem in the world but annoying nonetheless.

Overall, a great unit for recording, an okay unit for multi-disc playback. Three stars.

Folks, I have had mine for a few weeks, and after many calls to Sony I believe I sorta understand the mystery about the love hate relationship of this product. It appears that if one tries to burn over about 74 min of material (and this varies due to disc to disc variations) on a 80 min disc the machine freezes up after the recording process and will it not fianalize. Sony says that this normal for this machine. I know one needs to leave room for the TOC, but this is more than anyone elses home burner specifies. I like the changer and the ability to program and burn from multiple discs all at once, very nice! Keep your recording time down to around 72 minutes on an 80 min disc and it always works.

Looking at some of the other reviews here, I'm left wondering if Sony's quality control off the assembly line was inconsistent, given the performance issues a number of users have had with this model - I bought mine in November 2003 and it has performed very well overall through HEAVY use (lately I've been recording all the CDs from my collection to CD-R and selling the originals)...

Like another user, I bought the Sony to replace TWO crappy Harmon Kardon CD components (their five-CD changer which was an absolute lemon, and their dual deck CD recorder which burnt out after about a year) - It's great to get the benefits of a 5-disc changer and a dual-deck recorder in the same unit - It has some really cool features in the advanced menu operations (you DO have to read the manual, people), like the fade in/out button, option of inserting 2" silence between tracks, adjustable record volume on both analog and digital input modes, optical digital ins/outs (this is great for running into another CD player or mixer, and I've recorded a lot of my own music performances on this Sony) - AND it plays MP3 CDs if you ever use those...

The ONE problem I have had with this unit (I have NOT had the problems other reviewers have complained about) is that on SOME CDs (CD-Rs mainly, but even on some commercial factory-made music CDs) the changer/playback deck does not read tracks correctly when dubbing - What I mean is, I put a ten-track CD in to dub it to CD-R, and two or more tracks get run together into one track on the CD-R copy - Obviously not good if you want to be able to access individual tracks on your home-recorded CDs - This has only happened on three or fours OLD CDs from 1990 or so, where perhaps the index info on the source disc was sketchy, although these problem CDs DO play on other CD players, including my Sony $600 rackmount pro model, cheap Discmans, and my computer - I actually thought the unit was defective and brought it in for servicing (I was smart enough to get the extended warranty), but it turned out to be okay - A related problem is that for a while A LOT of the AUDIO CD-Rs I burned from MP3 files on my computer would tend to skip when played on this Sony, whereas they played fine on other players, which meant I had to take the computer-burned CD-R and play it on my Sony rackmount player while running an optical out cable from there into this Sony recorder, to rerecord the CD - BIG pain in the butt - But oddly, this situation seems to have resolved itself, and now I am burning dozens of CDs on my computer from MP3 downloads and they're playing fine on the RCDW500C - Go figure... I guess it comes down to the 'error-correction' circuitry that all CD players have, and the circuitry on this model is less forgiving of minor digital glitches and aberrations on CDs than even some cheap Discman units...

At this point, this Sony is working great for me 99% of the time, and I can recommend it to anyone...

My experience with this has been a frustrating one. For the two years I had it, approximately one out of every five times, 20 seconds into the finalization process, I got the message "Incomplete!". That CD is now garbage. I threw away dozens of Sony CDRs because of this. When you look that message up in the manual, it tells you the recorder could not finalize your disc. Well duh! I sort of guessed that! Might as well have an explanation that says "This recorder doesn't always work". This is VERY ANNOYING! I'm doing nothing unusual and there's no rhyme or reason to it that I can determine. It even does it sometimes just straight "synchro- recording", though not as often. If you try to play that CD, you get an error message that says C14 TOC error and the explanation of that says something like "the recorder cannot read the table of contents". Yeah, I know... WHY????? I'm trying to take the advice of other reviewers and limit the recording to 70 minutes, but a cd recorder really should be able to record 80 min on a 80 min disc. And I'm trying to minimize vibration, but this continues to happen. Also, sometimes when I put a blank Sony CDR in, it reads "No disk". I get the impression Sony simply has not perfected the technology here.

I had rated this two stars, but have now returned to make it one star (but can't figure out how to change it). Because I now have a whole new problem! It just jammed on me! Loaded 5 CDS in the changer; played a few tunes. Went to eject one of them & the tray came out empty! Closed it & then it won't read or acknowledge any of the trays. It lights up like there are CDS in it, but does not play or eject any of them. Unplugged overnight- still the same. WHAT A PIECE OF JUNK!!!!! As others here have said Sony should be ashamed (but they're not). To have Amazon readers & users experience the same problems- the jamming, the finalizing, the non reading of discs- tells you this is simply an unperfected piece of equipment. Read all the reviews- you'll see a pattern. And Sony does not care. If only there was a better machine out there- even for more money. And that's what I'm off to find, since I now have to dismantle this thing in an attempt to retrive my CDS, before I throw it away. Sony won't get another of my (hundreds of)dollars.

BUYER BEWARE: You can take a chance- you might not get any problems- at least at first- but trust me- you will.

I previously owned an ONKYO CD recorder, which crapped out on me in about a year of frequent use (preceded by a year of very infrequent use). When it died, and Onkyo no longer made such a device, I bought this one. The ONLY trouble I've had with this unit is in recording CDs from CD-RWs using the high-speed dubbing. Simple solution, use the regular speed dubbing when recording from CD-RWs and, no problems.

I've never had a CD stuck in the unit. The manual, though not well written, is not as absurd as some.

My only fear is that this unit, and Music CD recorders, may become obsolete.

Update: January, 2007: I simply must comment on the issue of TOC (table of contents) and disc error messages that many reviewers have mentioned. YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THEM OVER AND OVER. I have tried all different brands of music CD-R's over the years and no brand, not even the Sonys, is exempt from this happening. Sometimes it happen to 2 or 3 discs in a row (after an hour of recording or so and especially when making mixed cd's). It is VERY frustrating and I must say with today's computer burning capabilities, it actually makes this unit a less that stellar choice in the home CD burning category. If you are looking for a CD burner, I'd have to suggest going with a computer because after 4 years of having this I can no longer use it. It just takes too long and the discs experience way to many read/TOC/finalizing errors thus wasting any time you may have spent recording. As a CD player, it works fine, but unless you like wasting hours in front of a component recording just to have it tell you "Unable to Finalize" or "TOC Error" at the end thus negating all your hard work, use a computer.
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I used to own a Philips single disc CD recorder which I had to hook up externally to my stereo and make analog recordings between the 2 components. It was a nightmare; Wasted discs, additional track numbers, skipped track numbers, unable to recognize disc if I stopped mid way through the mix, inability to finalize... I was so discouraged I thought I'd never buy another stereo CD recorder again, but then i took a chance on the Sony RCDW500C.

First of all, I have to admit that the instructions leave a lot to be desired. You'll find yourself flipping back and forth between pages trying to figure them out and half of it won't seem to make any sense, (downsampling, bbs, analog recordings, upsampling, optical input, manual sound levelling, set up screen options yadda, yadda, yadda) so I'd suggest you actually sit in front of the recorder and actually perform the steps as you read them. If you're looking for a recorder that you can hook a cassette player or turntable up to and record old formats, this unit will do that, but you'll find there are a lot of settings that can be changed that will make the recorder work differently, so you'll have to play with those to determine which is best for your own needs.

All CD to CD recording is done internally and digitally from deck A to deck B resulting in excellent data transfer between the discs as long as the unit doesn't have "disc error" problems which happen quite frequently. I made my first mixed CDR and then recorded it to another CDR with the touch of only 2 buttons and the 2nd CDR duplicated flawlessly. I also recorded a complete CD to a CDR using the "make disc" high speed button and was finished in less than 10 minutes. (The make disc function copies songs, full track CD text and finalizes the CDR for you all in one step.)

On the other hand, this unit is plagued with problems when it comes to reading and writing on the actual discs. I have stuck vehemently to the suggestion of another reviewer here to stop recording at least 5-6 minutes before the end of the CDR to leave space for the finalizing data track and that has reduced the number of "Unable to Finalize" messages I've gotten. If you just start off with the assumption that an 80 minute CDR should actually only record about 72-74 minutes of music, you'll be golden. Trying to squeeze that last song in up to the last few seconds of recording time displayed on the recorder may cause finalization problems. As for the "TOC error" and unable to read disc errors, well, you're on your own for them. I have not been able to figure out any way to reduce the number or frequency of them showing up and overall, I'd say that about HALF of the discs I've attempted to make end up with some sort of read/write error half way through. ;8^(

Another problem I did encounter in the directions is that they state when recording a CD track to the CDR, you first press the record button on deck B (puts deck B in "standby" for recording)then press the play button on track A. I found that when doing this, if there was more than a few seconds of silence between the time you press play on deck A and the time the song actually starts, deck B will skip to the next track number when the song starts. (ie. press record on deck B, press play on deck A, if more than 3 seconds pass while deck A is loading, when song starts deck B automatically detects the signal and then jumps to track 2, leaving track 1 as a few seconds of silence on your new CDR)

Supposedly this "setting" can be turned off in the settings menu, but after turning it to "off", it still happened, so to remedy the problem, I found it is better to switch the order in the instructions. In record mode, press Play on deck A first, wait a second or two while the player locates the proper track (you can hear the cd spinning inside faintly while the laser locates the track) then once the "spinning noise" from deck A stops, right before the track begins playing, manually start deck B recording. (It's pretty simple to do this and after a few practices, it will become second nature.)

If you have the time to sit down and get to know how it works and decide which settings you want to set it up with at the start, you shouldn't have many problems with this player except the read/write problems mentioned above. and when it works and you'll find out it can be a lot of fun.