standalone cd recorder

[chip]

I keep hearing from many people ( audiophiles) that a standalone cd recorder is way better than using the PC for recording to/ from Br devices. My pal has made some recordings from the 600 to a Sony recorder and they sound very good. But are they/he right. Is there any difference between using the Nero/windows media/ all the rest of them and going direct to the standalone. No MP3 or anything, no audacity either just a straight copy.

 For instance: transfer file to computer burn to cd. Connect BR to standalone, play track and record direct. Can there be a real difference. My mate does have NAIM audio equipment for playback which is very expensive if that is any help. He reckons there is, but I'm not sure?

http://www.naimaudio.com/

[64Guitars]

No. The best way to get high quality sound out of your BR is to export it as a WAV file. That gives you 16-bit, 44.1kHz digital audio, which is exactly the same format that a CD uses, so you can write it directly to a CD using Nero (or similar software) and your computer's CD burner.

To record the output of your BR to a standalone CD recorder, the digital audio from the BR first has to be converted to an analog signal to send it out the BR's Line Out jacks. Then this analog signal arriving at the CD recorder's Line Input has to be converted to 16-bit, 44.1kHz digital audio which is then written to the CD. This unnecessary digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion degrades the signal slightly. But when you export a WAV file from the BR and write it directly to a CD, it stays digital the whole time. There are no digital-to-analog or analog-to-digital conversions at all (until you play back the CD), so the sound quality is preserved.

It could be argued that the analog-to-digital converters in some high-end CD recorders are better than those in the BR. But any slight benefit is lost because of the A-D and D-A conversions needed to get the signal from the BR to the CD recorder. If you had a BR-864 or BR-900 which both have an optical digital output, you could connect that to the CD recorders digital input (if it has one) to avoid the A-D and D-A conversions. But the BR's converters are pretty good, so I don't think you'd hear any difference. It's a lot of trouble and expense with no real benefit. So I'd recommend exporting WAV files from the BR instead.

[chip]

Cheers 64, you saved me a packet. My mate is a bit nerdy where audio is concerned and cannot tolerate mp3 and can hardly tolerate cd's. He had to buy a cd player that cost £4000 with an amp costing the same just to get the sound right out of a cd, add on the £3000 speakers and you get my drift, that's for one room. He then has some other high end stuff in the other room, bonkers but nice. He will not touch a computer with a barge pole, doesn't drive a car and lives quite literally on another planet