Marantz DR600 CD Recorder
This is about the most appealing CD recorder we've come across. The champagne anodised front panel and slim section make it the sort of recorder anyone would be proud to have in the living room. As with all Philips based recorders, it's fully CD-RW (rewrite) ready, but unlike earlier examples this has the ability to accept text via the mobile phone style keypad on the remote. So in theory you never need look at the small type on the back of the caddy to identify a track - just check the display.
In use, the DR6000 is as straightforward as your average CD-R. There's the usual synch and manual record options, plus a 'make CD' feature that does it all in one hit. It has a useful four second input buffer so that synch recordings don't start just after the first note, and even with analog recordings it's possible to have track numbers automatically inserted, as long as there's a 2.7 second gap between tracks.
It's not as highly featured as some of the competition: you can't do much in the way of recording with the remote, and there's no timer function, but the latter especially is pretty rare despite its appeal to the radio enthusiast.
SOUND QUALITY
Where the Marantz scores over most CD-R/RWs is its quality as a plain CD player. I really enjoyed the sound this player made. It's sweet and smooth but has plenty of resolve, openness and detail. It has the hallmark good timing that the brand trades on, but none of the forwardness that can come with it. I guess those who prefer a gung-ho sound might find it a little relaxed, but at the price it's a winner on this score.
Recordings were pretty much spot-on; the only difference I detected was in level. Although no level adjustment is suggested when making a synch recording, the copies came out a little quieter than originals. But that's no big deal, and my manual efforts made at 0dB were pretty much exact.
All in all, a very nice machine. It copies well and plays back very nicely. If you're after a well built and easy to enjoy CD-RW machine, consider spending the extra on one of these.
