Rating: 
Summary: The best on the market
Review: If you are an individual who loves music, this is the finest piece of technology your money can buy. Examining the Harman Kardon CDR 2 CD-R/CD-RW Player/Recorder strictly in terms of its playback capability is simply astonishing! I have never heard my CD's sound as good as they have as they resonate from this device. When listening to my CD's as they play in the Harman Kardon CDR 2 CD-R/CD-RW Player/Recorder, it honestly sounds like Harman Kardon has invented a new form from which music is extracted. For example, there's eight tracks, records, cassettes and CD's - but this machine plays my discs so well that it is revolutionary. Perhaps this is the first device that is truly maximizing the potential of CD's? As for the recording, this is just as impressive. I have not had a single glitch on any of my burned CD's, and I have made over seventy-five. Moreover, the burned CD's sound just as good as the normal ones. My final compliment for the Harman Kardon CDR 2 CD-R/CD-RW Player/Recorder is that I had some badly scratched CD's, and even they played perfectly. I cannot fatham a better piece of technology. Do not worry about the difficulty of burning CD's or any other of its capabilities. The instructions make the process extremely simple.
Rating:
Summary: CDR2 Does Not Dissapoint!
Review: My main objective was to be able to record old vinyl albums onto CD's to play in my car. Just got the CDR-2 yesterday and am already VERY pleased. The instructions were thorough and easy to follow, and I've been very impressed with the sound quality. I did make a few false starts when I started recording, but that was because I read the instructions too quickly and missed little details (like pushing "select" after you push "finalize"). I do agree with their recommendation to practice a bit with rewritable disks until you get the hang of it.Don't be intimidated by how high-tech the unit sounds - it's very user friendly.
Rating:
Summary: Great Machine, So-so manual
Review: Since I've had this machine only a couple of days, I should probably have waited before writing the review, but I noticed a couple of things in previous reviews that called for comment. If I could take off a half star for the instructions, I would, but the machine itself is fabulous. It indeed plays CDs so they sound better than on "ordinary" CD players. I used to be skeptical of claims that some CD players were better than others, figuring they were all basically the same, but this one is clearly more "musical" than the others I've owned. The copies I've made are identical to the originals, and I found them easy to make. The understated design is very classy. Now, as to my criticisms about the instruction manual: It is well-written, but omits certain critical information. For example, I was not clear on how to make a compilation from different disks. The instructions made it seem as if you had to pre-program your selections to do so, but I didn't see how you could do this with more than one source disk. Therefore, I plunged right in, recording one track at a time from various disks, and it turned out fine. My other issue was that the instructions say (as does a previous reviewer) that you can record up to 20 tracks on a disk. The Beatles compilation I was making only came to 50 minutes or so after 20 songs, so I experimented to see what would happen if I tried to put another on. It worked, so I was up to 21 with no problem. Anyway, I probably have a lot to learn about recording CDs, and if anyone who read the instructions more carefully than I finds that my questions were covered there, I welcome your corrections. For prospective buyers, I would not let my criticisms deter you from ordering the CDR-2, because I am very happy with it and only regret waiting to buy it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best purchases I've made
Review: Since this is the first CD Writer I've bought, I can't really compare it with other CD Writers. However, I can say that I am totally pleased with this product (and CD Writers, in general), and it's capabilities! In creating your own CD's, you can create your own compilations of your favorite songs, omit songs you do not like, combine the best songs (on several CDs) onto one CD, record your favorite songs in any order you desire, etc. In fact, I combined almost 2 entire CD's (19 songs) onto one, and, depending on how long each song is, you could, potentially get up to 20 songs on a single CD. So, now I can get all of the songs I like to hear (from dozens of CD's) in the 6-disc CD Changer that I have, at once! I, also, like it that this CD Writer has a dual-deck (one for playing the CD, and the other for recording a CD), and, also, that you can program the songs you wish to record, in any order you want, before recording. That makes it very easy to create your own compilation CD's! Then, unlike with recorded tapes, the sound of recorded CD's is equal to the original CD! The only thing I haven't figured out is how to record a "hidden track" by starting the recording process in the middle of a track. You can, however, stop the recording in the middle of the track. I just don't know if starting at anywhere but the beginning of a single track/song is possible for getting "hidden tracks", only (or for getting "hidden tracks" onto a separate track on your "homemade" CD)...
Rating: 
Summary: Very good product, with a few reservations
Review: Sound quality: excellent. When I first played a CD thru the headphone jack I was amazed at all the subtle sounds that I had not heard before on other machines. I also burned some live music that I had on minidisc to a CD and noticed a similar improvement. Features: Very good. The ability to do dubbing at 4x speed is a great time saver. It is possible to dub single tracks at high speeds (despite what the manual says). To do this use the Previous, Next buttons on the deck to select the track to dub, select the speed, then press dub. I also like that there are digital (both optical and coax) inputs and outputs in addition to the analog. I don't like that you can't dub programmed set of tracks at high speed, and when you dub single tracks it inserts 4 seconds of silence at the end of the track. That is no good when the source disc has continuous music between tracks. The playback deck can play finalized RW discs (which I'm not sure if other dual deck machines can do). This is good because you can use a RW to get the disc set up the way you want and then dub it to CD-R. The bad stuff: I had a problem with my original unit. Whenever I did a dub at 4x or 2x the left and right channels would be messed up. At 4x they would bounce back and forth irregularly, and there also seemed to be some distortion. At 2x the left and right were mixed to one channel, the other channel was empty. At first I thought it was just the disc. I tried it first with Memorex CD-R DAs that don't say they support high speeds. I then tried it with TDK CD-Rs that are certified good at all speeds, and a TDK CD-RW. Same problem. Also, when recording from an analog source you can do the track increments manually or use the automatic feature. The auto feature didn't work too accurately for me and you can't divide tracks afterwards, so I need to watch it and do it manually. I plan to get a minidisc deck with an optical out, so this won't be an issue...
Rating:
Summary: Very good product, with a few reservations
Review: Sound quality: excellent. When I first played a CD thru the headphone jack I was amazed at all the subtle sounds that I had not heard before on other machines. I also burned some live music that I had on minidisc to a CD and noticed a similar improvement. Features: Very good. The ability to do dubbing at 4x speed is a great time saver. It is possible to dub single tracks at high speeds (despite what the manual says). To do this use the Previous, Next buttons on the deck to select the track to dub, select the speed, then press dub. I also like that there are digital (both optical and coax) inputs and outputs in addition to the analog. I don't like that you can't dub programmed set of tracks at high speed, and when you dub single tracks it inserts 4 seconds of silence at the end of the track. That is no good when the source disc has continuous music between tracks. The playback deck can play finalized RW discs (which I'm not sure if other dual deck machines can do). This is good because you can use a RW to get the disc set up the way you want and then dub it to CD-R. The bad stuff: I had a problem with my original unit. Whenever I did a dub at 4x or 2x the left and right channels would be messed up. At 4x they would bounce back and forth irregularly, and there also seemed to be some distortion. At 2x the left and right were mixed to one channel, the other channel was empty. At first I thought it was just the disc. I tried it first with Memorex CD-R DAs that don't say they support high speeds. I then tried it with TDK CD-Rs that are certified good at all speeds, and a TDK CD-RW. Same problem. Also, when recording from an analog source you can do the track increments manually or use the automatic feature. The auto feature didn't work too accurately for me and you can't divide tracks afterwards, so I need to watch it and do it manually. I plan to get a minidisc deck with an optical out, so this won't be an issue...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Purchase for Stereo Buffs!
Review: The Harman Kardon CDR-2 is an excellent added compliment to any stereo! The details and instructions are easy reading and setting up this unit is very easy. All your old albums collecting dust can now be converted over to CD. If you're converting an old album and the signal quality isn't that strong, you can record the album to tape and increase the levels thus, increasing the signal and then record it to CD. I rate this product a total of 5 stars. The only draw back is the 3 second wait time. Other than that, it's a remarkable product. You can use either the remote or the front panel to record your music. Someone had wrote that you needed the remote to record and if lost, you would be unable to do any recording. This is wrong! I did it with both remote and manually with my hands. The playback was excellent and a CD is included for practicing. Just don't finalize the CD until you've used all the time allowed to record. Once it's finalized, that's it. Enjoy this remarkable product, you can't go wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Purchase for Stereo Buffs!
Review: The Harman Kardon CDR-2 is an excellent added compliment to any stereo! The details and instructions are easy reading and setting up this unit is very easy. All your old albums collecting dust can now be converted over to CD. If you're converting an old album and the signal quality isn't that strong, you can record the album to tape and increase the levels thus, increasing the signal and then record it to CD. I rate this product a total of 5 stars. The only draw back is the 3 second wait time. Other than that, it's a remarkable product. You can use either the remote or the front panel to record your music. Someone had wrote that you needed the remote to record and if lost, you would be unable to do any recording. This is wrong! I did it with both remote and manually with my hands. The playback was excellent and a CD is included for practicing. Just don't finalize the CD until you've used all the time allowed to record. Once it's finalized, that's it. Enjoy this remarkable product, you can't go wrong.
Rating:
Summary: It is almost perfect, but..
Review: The Harmon Kardon CDR2 lives up to its reputation in terms of music quality. I also found it easy to set up and could easily record off both CD as well as audio cassettes. For those who have a large analog collection that they wish to digitize (as I do) I suggest that you buy one blank CD-RW disc also. You can then assemble a selection on this CD-RW and then zap it on to a (less expensive) CD-R disc. The CD-RW allows you to correct your mistakes (which are likely to happen when you are transcribing cassettes). The two features that I would like to see (but missing) are 1) multiple CD capability on the play side (if you are making a personal collection, the chances are you will be recording from several CDs), and 2)An option to finalize automatically. The other disappointment was that you could not use the 4x speed feature when recording a selection of tracks. If these annoyances dont bother you, I would highly recommend this deck. My rating would be 4 1/2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Harmon Kardon CDR2
Review: The innovative CDR 2 is the world's first dual-deck, CD-R/RW audio recorder to feature 4x dub speed. No matter the source - a 4x dub on the CDR 2's decks, external digital or analog - the CDR 2 brings your library of tapes and vinyl into the digital age! There is even a front-panel digital connection for use with portable digital products. Adept at playback as well as recording, the CDR 2 can function as a two-disc changer or play two discs simultaneously, all with 96/24 capability and audiophile-grade AKM DACs. The CDR 2 is the preferred way to bring the recording side of a home-entertainment system into the digital era. This is strictly a home theatre piece, and a darn good one at that...But, if any of you are considering this unit for a professional surrounding (studio recording, live sound, or high volume duplucation), you may not find it to be the right piece...In this case, check out either the Tascam or the Marantz units at the same general price...these pieces will hold up more to daily use...I am a recording professional and cannot take a chance on a semi-pro piece of gear...
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