Tascam CD-RW901 Professional CD Recorder

For over a decade I've been looking for a product that could dupe a CD while one could listen to the original. I've got about 20 linear feet of CDs, and when I brew up a CD for a friend it's nice to be able to preview what one is about to record, and listen to it while being duped. About 10-plus years ago, I got the Philips unit that was dual tray. It was easy to use and I was very satisfied with it until it stopped working. Reviews of this unit on Amazon are pretty excoriating and indicate my experience was not unique. Reviews of other products in this space, like the one from Sony, are also on the negative side. Somewhat of a mystery as the technology involved is pretty basic and one would think the electronic manufacturers could master it; apparently not. I then (recently) got the TEAC CD-RW 880 that was a total dud couldn't get it to record anything and sent it back. (One indication that there might be trouble ahead is the "quick start" one page instructions had totally different instructions on how to record than that contained in the manual; neither worked.) Then I got the TASCAM.

First thing one notices on opening the box is there is no optical link cable provided; at least the TEAC had one, a bit cheesey for TASCAM as the unit costs about twice as much and they are the same company. The unit does record, but drops about half the tracks. Used both the manual and the auto-record option and it seems to make no difference. I might be doing something wrong, but I've devoted many hours to figuring this thing out, and I'm pretty good at reading instuctions. On the positive side: Recording quality is excellent. I've got a pretty high-end hi fi system that makes poor quality CDs audibly obvious; the TEAC seems bit perfect. The controls are well laid out and seem to be of high quality. For the professional crowd, there are a lot of advanced features MIDI etc. Save for the (not unimportant!) fact it won't take about half of what's served up, a nice piece of equipment.