I got one of these machines a week ago, by pure chance. Now I didnt go out and buy one but swapped it off of a friend who wanted to use it with his midi system ;-)
Anyway the UK pack came with 1 Re-Writeable CD and 4 Writeables...But these must be proper audio ones. Not the PC/PSX ones...

Sound quality is superb. Far better than either my NAD or my Denon.

Only problems I have found so far are: -

1, No Disk-at-Once facility if trying to do a live concert to CD you will always get a 4 second gap between the tracks.

2, Availability of blank cd's not easy to find at the moment..

All in all though of a Shop price of between £400-£450 its well worth the money.

I have found the Philips 765 to be a fantastic machine. Created 8 CDs in the past month. Copied my old albums from the early 70's (Jethro Tull, the Who) on to CD that I listen to on my portable CD player on the commuter train into Chicago each morning. Tranfer of favorite tracks from my CD collection is perfect. With 74 minutes of play time, I usually get 17 to 20 tracks on a CD. I also have some excellent live recordings on video and have tranfered these via stereo VCR audio out hook-up to my receiver and analog connection to the 765. I have found "audio" blank CD's sell for $3.50 to $5.50. I created a web site to share my experience with this amazing recording device. I have no commercial interest in this, just sharing info with other audio enthusiasts. Find it here: http://www.gallagher.com/music/cdr.htm
Good luck.
Mark
Chicago, Dec. 27, 1998

On May 21, 1999, I purchased the Philips CDR-765 from J&R Music World in NYC. The first CD that I recorded from Analog, worked out well. When it was time to make a copy of the CD, I was left wondering whether or not you were supposed to finalize to copy also? This part was left out of the manual under the finalization feature. When it was time to record my second CD, the ODC was unable to read the disc. The disc was digital audio from TDK to which it wasn't mentioned in the manual that a TDK disc couldn't be used. There was a problem with my machine to which in the fixing problems on page 21 of the manual, showed it had to be repaired (-----). I had to exchange this machine four times total between May 21 - June 8. I finally contacted Philips to which they explained the options that I had to exchange this product. Either exchange it once more with J&R Music World (ten day exchange) or send it to Philips to which since my last purchase was June 4, 1999, If they find it as unworkable, they'll send myself a brand new machine at no charge to myself. The bottom line is I liked the use of the machine when I first used it, my problem is that the sensitivity of reading a disc is a big flaw to which Philips wasn't aware of. I'm now waiting for a brand new machine. Hopefully in three weeks, I'll receive one CDR-765 that finally works. J&R Music World was the problem, not Philips!

I'm back with my revised view of the CDR-765 from PHILIPS. I burned my first CDon June 17, 1999 to positive results. Philips sent back my malfunction CD recorder within two weeks to my surprise. The only flaw that I had was recording in analog mode through auto track, I had to press the fast forward button to number the tracks since I was mixing continuously. Unfortunately, this function left an annoying pause after every mix. I had to record the whole
CD over again. I was glad to record it over because it turned out to be the best mixes that I've ever done in my twenty two years of remixing songs. It's benificial to record in auto track and record as one track. The negativity that
comes from this process is when dubbing the CD, it takes the full 74 minutes to
duplicate, not half of the time. Nevertheless, I'm very impressed and with all of that, I was left very impressed.

I purchased the 765 about two months ago. I operate a small project studio and keep very busy. I've recorded over 100 CD-R's/CD-RW's on the 765. I use the 765 to do live to CD-R often. Use the 765 with CD-RW instead of DAT for mastering. Don't need tape at all anymore.Has quirks but I do love this machine. Been a good experience. Love the CD
burn in real-time. Has been very predictable. I did buy a 6 year insurance
policy (about $129) from the store. I'm sure I'll get my money back.

* Manual is terrible. Next to useless.
* Wish I could turn off copy protection.
* CDs are expensive.
* Failure rate on burns about 3%. I use only kodak CD-R/RW
* No mechanical or system failures
* Easy to use once you figure it out
* Noticed a few software glitches when both trays are being opened, closed,
reading or synching (OPC) at the same time.
* Love the digital in/out.
* Don't really understand what red on LED meters means. I send in digital
-1 DB and it shows red. I would have thought red on the meter would be +1db.

The best I can say is, do not buy this product. I just exchanged my first one for my second one yesterday and already I'll be returning this one for good. The first CDR-765 I purchased had defective digital I/O's. It worked with the coaxial in, but that was about it. It lasted me until the store I bought it at got more in so I could exchange it. Now, the morning after, the CDR-765 won't even turn on! I'm so outraged that I felt I had to share my thoughts to people who might potentially buy this product. I can only hope this reaches enough people. I know, however, that I would love this product, if it only worked correctly!

I waited many years to backup my vinyl record collection, knowing that someday I would be able to digitize late fifties, early sixties music. With that in mind I purchased the CDR 765. My first experiment after removing the 765 from the box was to record something off of a record and play it back to determine if the frequency response and quality of the recording would equal the source. After recording my first song onto a CD-RW, I played back both the CD-RW and the same song on the turntable at the same time. I then switched inputs on my amplifier between CD and turntable and listened carefully on my headphones. YES, this is what I was looking for. What was on CD sounded as good as listening directly to the LP. I couldn't tell a difference. It reminded me of the same results I got with a high-end reel-to-reel tape recorder I had back in the early eighties. Now I had a medium that would not deteriorate with time like a magnetic tape. Now the bad news. I soon learned the limitations of this particular Philips CD recorder. This unit was obviously made for simplicity and ease of use. It was also meant primarily for duping other CD's. Analog recording was an after thought. First, the input level control only has four steps, -3db, 0db, +3db and +6db. When recording records, I set the input level at either +3db or +6db. However, most LP's needed to be set somewhere in between those two settings to equal the output of a typical CD. So, the output level of my LP's (recorded on CD's) was either too low or too loud when compared/mixed with recordings made from other CD's.
Secondly, when you dupe/copy a CD on the 765, you must copy the entire track (song). You cannot start a CD a few seconds into the song on the player side of the 765 and then copy to the recorder side This is bad news if recording LP's. The first time you copy an LP onto CD, you will likely get a second or two of silent groove on the LP before the song starts. This could be edited out of the second copy if you could start the player side of the 765 a couple of seconds into the song. But no can do with the 765. You would have to get an external CD player for this.
So, I took my 765 back and got a refund and bought the CDR880. The 880 has the required input level control. As an external CD transport, I use a Pioneer DVD player (with digital outputs). And of course the external player allows me to properly start a song at any point.
So. . . bottom line, research the differences between Philips models before you buy. If you are going to be recording a lot of analog, do NOT buy the CDR765.
One interesting thing about the Philips recorders concerning SCMS. You can make a digital copy of a digital copy under very limited circumstances. If the first generation copy was made entirely through the analog inputs, then you can indeed make an exact 2nd generation digital copy using an external player. This works on both the 765 and 880. However, if the first generation copy was made through the digital inputs or from the player side of the 765, then obviously you cannot make a 2nd generation digital copy. It appears the SCMS code does not get recorded onto the first generation copy if made through the analog inputs. This is a valuable loop hole for me. I can record all my LP's onto CD and then go back and make a 2nd generation compilation without gong through an analog conversion. And the second time, I can edit out the silent groove before the song starts.

Audio quality

mechanicals, and internal functions.

I bought the 765 as an open box special at circuit city. It was a good price. It worked great for about a week. I made a total of 7 full CD's before things started going wrong. I made 3 full CD's in analog mode just fine. Dubbed copies of these 3 times. One high speed full CD dubb went ok. Then it started acting flakey. First failure: dubbing an 18 track CDRW to CDR: It stopped at track 8. I had to finish it manually, meaning it stopped after each track. So I had to re-start it 10more times to finish the disk. Next failure: dubbing a CD for my daughter, it stopped 1:15 into the first track, then filled up to 74 minutes. Wasted one CDR. Manual track select on the player side stopped responding when I wanted to pick individual tracks. It acted like it wanted to only copy the whole CD. I also didn't care for the "preset" recording levels. A little more versatility in this area is sorely needed. (-3, 0, +3, +6db) I thought the manual was OK, but a little more detail regarding SCMS and finalizing wouldn't hurt. I sure wish there was a way around this! 1Unfortunately I returned the unit being unsatisfied with the quality of a brand new unit. I would've loved this machine if it only worked properly. I'm using it for mastering my own multitrack efforts mostly. A friend of mine has one, and his works flawlessly. (For now. Go figure.) Overall, I'd rate it highly for what it was intended to do, limitaions and all, however I have to rate it poorly overall as I'm finding that there are problems with the units.

Similar Products Used:

None yet.

I purchased the 765 about 2 months ago for my project home studio. This helped me in my efforts to get my music heard as it was fairly easy to burn all of my projects onto cd. I thought the 765 was user-friendly (I only had problems with the first cd that i burned.) The sound quality is remarkable and the possibilities are endless with this machine. However the only drawback is the cost of the cd's themselves. i think the music industry pretty much screwed us consumers by hiking up the prices on the cd's because they felt that the artist would be ripped off. I have faith that in a few years this technology will catch on and prices will be forced to drop so that all will be able to afford