This is the most overpriced POS ever to be dumped on the electronic consumer market.
EVERYTHING bad as mentioned in so many reviews here is accurate. It took me weeks of constant email complaints to get an authorization to remove this dog from my premises

PS -.You shouldn't have to go hunting to find the "right" brand of CD to record on this stinker.
As it turns out, there is no right brand. Only bad and worse. It does have a pretty LED display. Hardly worth the 499.00.

Hey Guys!~ After long searching, I found the right CD-RW for the the Philip CDR785 Recorder.
It is the TDK 1x4 write speed CD-RW. The low speed is the key. It is 80 minutes and 700 mb. Works perfectly!!! Don't throw away that 785!!!

So the saga continues with the Philips CDR785 and other CDR burners they build. Very flakey and unreliable when accepting blank CDR's. And to make matters worse the only disc that still seem to work in mine, you can no longer by! (1-4X audio only) Do yourself a big favor and spend the extra $150.oo and get the pro quality TEAC unit like used in recording studios, these things will burn any disc! Too bad to I really liked the quality of the converters used in the Phillips. As far as there factory service is, don't bother , mine returned in worse condition than when I sent it. Someone really needs to start a class action law suit for all the suckers that bought there junk. I will never by another Philips product, no matter how good or how cheap!!!!!!!!

If you get lucky and get one that works out of the box the first time you should be happy.

read the reviews. too many to explain again.

Just as mentioned in other reviews this was my second recorder. The first wouldn't even open half the time. I have owned the second one for about a year and a half. Now it has started to shut down in the middle of recording and won't accept hardly any forms of blank cd's. If I had to do all over I would purchase a different brand. I have to say philips recorders are junk. All I can do with it is play cd's. I thought that this was the best thing since sliced bread, but upon further use I can best describe it as a nuisance and should not be in my home entertainment system. BUYER BEWARE its a roll of the dice with this one.

As others have mentioned, sometimes you can open the drawer. Also periodically will record about 30 seconds than shut down. It now will not even record from another source.Piece of junk. WASTED MONEY!!!

Performs well when it feels like it

Sporatic performance, bad manufacturing, terrible instructions manual, INCONSISTENT AT BEST!

This thing is junk! Ok, I've had the thing for a little over a year now and as time goes on the amount of probs I'm having with this thing are multiplying. First off, when I took it out of the box upon purchasing it, the cd drawer was crooked. My step-dad(practically a McGyver), was able to open it up and found the drawer was off of its hinges on one side. He reset the drawer.You would think that everything would be fine now, right? nope. Throughout the year that I've had it has always burned cds fine, but will automatically shut itself off if you just leave it playing a cd for more than 15 minutes or so. I think, but I'm not sure, that it goes into its "sleep mode," even though it is playing a cd. Now, just recently, it has been giving me the problems described in these other reviews. Sporatic performance, the cdr drawer not opening, having to plug and unplug the machine in order to just be able to play OR burn a cd. Please, dont buy this!

Pretty LED, promising featues (most of which functioned erratically at best)

Erratic operation of many functions. Tray lock-up, power shut down, unable to play or record various types of CDR/CDRW''s, unable to auto track from external analog source, among other minor annoyances and quirks.

An unrelenting tale of horror. All of the defects described in the reviews contained here - and then some. To describe problems in detail would put most readers to sleep. Suffice it to say - LET THE BUYER BEWARE. The FIRST unit purchased developed problems after only a month or two and was returned for exchange. The SECOND unit started out promising, but like it''s predecessor, developed multiple problems after a few months. Too late for another exchange or refund. Was advised by Philips factory service (some 500 miles distant) that local authorized service outlets were not adept at successfully repairing this high tech product, and had best ship it off to their center. Did that. Came back with some problems corrected, some not, and one additional problem not present when originally sent. That was a biggy - unit would completely power off. Power up - play awhile - power off, etc, etc. After multiple phone calls, much aggravation, and the additional expense of shipment, the great day came when I was mercifully released of the beast by way of complete refund. Please do not be lulled by the few glowing reviews of some customers who have written after only a few months of ownership. To those lucky few who have owned this product over a period of time without any problems, I say, continued good fortune. To those who are contemplating a multiple cd player/recorder I say - THERE ARE MUCH BETTER CHOICES.

Similar Products Used:

JVC XL5000.

...?

Malfunctioning unit.

I purchased this unit after reading mixed reviews on this site, people either seemed to really like it or really detest it.

I love Sears price matching program. I was able to find an internet dealer that advertised the price as 330.00. After 50.00 rebate it seemed like a hell of a deal.

I didn't find the manual as confusing as some reviews would lead you to believe. I was ready to burn a disc in no time at all. The problem was that the unit would stop recording halfway thru the burning process. This occured three times and on the fourth time the whole unit powered down.

After this I was quite hacked off. I returned the unit to Sears for a refund. I had the option of exchanging, but I was so disgusted I decided I'll stick to my computer burner for now.

Maybe it was a bad unit, but I don't think I'll try another 785 unit, even if it was priced right.

Similar Products Used:

Computer CDRW

price!!!!!!

erratic with non-philips r/w, the cdr door

saw it at sears with closeout price then went home and saw commercial for rebate-$179 inc. $50 rebate plus 25 cdrs free!!! brand new in the box.too good to be true?i hope not. bought memorex r/w and recorded a track. i played the opening minute of the song and it sounded excellent. then i tried to eject it and it wouldn't. i unplugged it(thanx for the previous reviews)and it hasn't happened again-yet. then i played the r/w in the player section and noticed some dropouts at the end of the song. i then put it back in the r/w slot and it wouldn't even recognize it-oh well. recorded some songs on philips cdr inc. w/player with no problems. not sure if i'm gonna keep it(sears has 90 day return policy). does anyone know where i can get some philips cdrw-online or in store? thanx.

Similar Products Used:

none

This is for the CDR785.Excellent ADC/DACs, awesome analog output sound quality as with Digital, sampling rate converter works on Dish Network, unlike all Pioneer recorders.

This is for the CDR785. Manual has vital information about recording missing. No info on how to set recording levels and tech. reps. are the most ignorant people I've ever talked to. This recorder is DEFINATELY not for anyone new to digital recording, STAY AWAY! Besides having no info on how to set recording levels to maintain a 0 db setting, the manual contradicts itself- It will not digitally record bit for bit when any recording is made at 2x speed, "BESIDED AN ENTIRE CD DUB". For anything other than a CD DUB, you must record in listen mode, or the auto level control/compressor comes into play. On top of that, when recording off of radio, the manual also doesn't state how to pause the recording. NO MENTION WHAT SO EVER!! To top it off, the remote pause key doesn't work in record mode!! I found out that the front display single button play/pause will pause a recording. That button has the same function as the play button on the remote. SINCE the manual doesn't say, you must press the remote's play button to pause during recording, NOT THE OBVIOUS PAUSE BUTTON. I was assured months ago that a newly written manual would be headed to my mail box. As of today, NOTHING!!!! I can't say this loud enough, NEWBIES WHO HAVE NEVER DONE DIGITAL RECORDING ON A STAND ALONE UNIT, "STAY AWAY!!!". It doesn't offer an optical output but it's analog performance is so good, you won't miss it.

Well, let me first state this machine is awesome, but to use it, you have to guess and hopefully guess right. The manual is worthless and doesn't describe how to use the recorder, besides the obvious. Philips knows that the manual is inaccurate and incomplete, but have not sent me a revised manual yet. I'M STILL WAITING! So if you figure this machine out, it offers much more than anything on the market. First of all, "ALL" CD recorders are flaky. MY first Pioneer 739 was mechanically defective(I tried 3 because Pioneer's 739 and 509 use an incompatible sampling rate converter that refuses to see a digital output from my Dish Network receiver. All other recorders worked fine except the Pioneers.). My HK CDR2 was defective. My first Philips CDR785 was defective. For that matter, my first CV50 Panasonic DVD changer was defective. All these models were bought at Best Buy and Circuit City, so maybe it could be product handling besides poor quality control on these manufacturer's part.

Anyhow this product provides the most performance I found. It clearly blows away the HK CDR2 IMHO. I hated the sound of the HK, even the non defective model. It just had something missing. The Pioneer was much better but included some harshness. The CDR785 was a sonic know out. It was the equal of my Yamaha CD player and sounded awesome. The CDR2 was design flaw riddled, read my review of it. The Pioneer was just incompatible. I do most of my recording off of Dish Net. The sound quality lacks, but I can find rare bands that I never heard before and go buy their CDs. The 785's remote is awesome also. It's the most clutter free remote I've ever seen. Yet, it does everything the other's do. BTW, the 785 also offers an A/B editing feature the other's don't. This comes in handy when breaking one track up into many. A bit time consuming compared to minidisc, but it can be done. The other recorders had no such editing. The 785 offers a lot more than the others if you can guess how to use it. I would rate this machine a 3 for not having a useable manual, but 3 here, usually indicates crappy equipment, which this surely isn't. For that reason, I give it a 4. If it came with an useable manual, a stable 5.

Similar Products Used:

HK CDR2, Pioneer PDR739, and Pioneer PDR509