Philips CDR796 2-Disc CD Recorder

This is a stylish piece of kit that goes well in any hi-fi rack. As a CD player it produces a very realistic, punchy sound. As a recorder it also performs extremely well from any type of source and is very easy to use. Be warned, though, that it only seems happy with older CD-RW discs - later ones, perhaps because they are actually capable of higher speeds, seem to confuse this machine and it often will not read or record them. You can find plenty of discussion about this problem in user forums on the internet. If you have some older discs, it should be fine, but if you are just starting out in recording you will need to search out some old stock. Currently (March 07) there are a few sellers on eBay offering JVC 74-min Audio CD-RW discs, which I have bought, and which do work perfectly. I have not used it with CD-R discs, so cannot comment on that. But my main reason for buying this was to be able to play MP3 CDs through my hi-fi system, and this machine does this extremely well, with little or no noticeable difference in quality from a normal CD. Alternatively, load normal CDs in both trays and you can have two and a half hours of uninterrupted listening anyway. Slight niggles are that Philips have done away with some of the operating simplicity of their earlier machines - this one makes you press twice to confirm that you want to eject a CD before it is finalised, and always resets the track increment mode when you switch off, so that you have to remember to set it again before you start recording, otherwise you may find that it inserts new tracks in unexpected places. Overall, a strong recommendation.