price

Stops in the middle of recording.

Bought this as a so-called "refurbished" product from ubid. I caution anyone thinking of doing this. When it arrived, it had a broken piece on the front of the recorder. I was hoping that it was the only reason it was being sold as "refurbished". It turned out not to be the case. It's defective. While recording, it will stop in the middle of a song and display that the CD is full. Can't do anything more with the CD. I got about 12 songs done a couple times before it quit. It stopped a couple more times after only 5 or 6 songs. Unfortunately for me, I didn't use the recorder much until after I had it for 7 days. And that's the time limit on ubid's warranty. They sold the defective product, but they are off the hook in 7 days. According to ubid, Philips has a 60 day warranty on it but I've sent them four e-mails and they won't respond. I certainly get the impression that they don't want to deal with these "refurbished-defective" recorders that they sell so many of at ubid.

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My first CD recorder

Ease of Use. Recording Quality.

It is slow.

I bought the unit New a couple of months ago. I had a problem with it initially. When recording on CDRW... a couple of times it suddenly not be able to read the CDRW. Even when cooled. CDRW's were ruined. Phillips Tech support had two suggestions. 1) move the unit away from my amplifier (it was stacked on top of the amp) 2) Don't use memorex CDRW's. I did both of these and have had not one problem since then.

Unit makes exceptional recordings. Have recorded several albums to CD for myself and friends. Also records really well from cd to cd. Super easy to use. Even my wife can figure it out.

It is a little slow. You drop a CD in it and it takes a little longer than one would expect to read it and prepare to record. But that's minor.

I have a Yamaha AW4416 16 track digital recorder with burner that I use for recording my studio tracks. This little Phillips unit reproduces the mixed down CD's with great quality and ease. For $225 bucks.... it is a super deal.

NONE!

EVERYTHING!

Tried my new unit for the first time this weekend and wasn't even able to record a single song before the thing froze up, exactly as so many others have already detailed below. Got the mysterious OPC Error message. Got the "No Disk" message when the disk was in. Got the unending "Updating" message that could only be stopped by shutting off the unit entirely. My brand new unit is already in the shop, two days later. Only wish I had found this site before I purchased the thing. It cannot be a coincidence that so many people are reporting the exact same problems. Clearly the model is inherently defective and Philips must know that (there are a suspiciously large number of "refurbished" 775's for sale on the net). Philips should be ashamed of itself for continuing to leave this product on the market

This is not a matter of a few duds - the people who got working units clearly lucked out.

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Pioneer 739

Easy to use

Reliability

I have had my CDR775 for 10 month and it is still working.
I was very doubtful from the beginning after returning two machines to the shop already, both with the freezing problem (they locked the system in the middle of copying to CD-R which resulted in a destroyed blank). Since I had a bunch of vinyl I wanted to transfer to CD I gave it a chance and brought the third machine home. It is not perfect though since a segment in the display is unlit but this I think is a minor fault compared to the other. I think I've "only" destroyed one or two blanks in my current recorder.
I don't know if it's that hard to make a reliable CD recorder or if it's bad workmanship. All machines were made in Hungary to get cheaper labour cost. If the poor quality has something to do with this I think Philips made a mistake. It may also be the design itself.
I'm mostly making copies from analog sources and it works fine. It can be a bit tricky to mark the tracks manually and if you have to re-record a track it might result in a pop where the new recording begins.
To write text with the jog-key takes a lot of patience (how about a computer keyboard inlet?).
My recommenation is to look for a more reliable CD recorder than the CDR775.

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no

When it works, the quality of the copies are great. Also good for recording from outside sources.

More tempremental than Roseanne Arnold with PMS. Lots of technical glitches.

I bought this unit for several reasons. I really wanted it so that I could transfer music from my digital home studio (from Roland--excellent product for a musician)to a recording medium. CD's keep their sound quality forever, as long as they still function, so I wanted a CD burner. I also wanted to make CD mixes for my car stereo.

I bought the Philips model because it was cheap, at least compared to the others I saw. I has two decks in it, one for playing pre-recorded CD's and one for copying onto a CDR or CDRW. It has a simple control layout and the display is nicely done.

My first task was to mix down some songs I had on my studio and record onto a CD through the CDR775. This worked like a charm. The sound was stunning, particularly when I compared it to the cheesy tapes that I was forced to use before I purchased this gizmo. I found the manual relatively easy to use, and it was not hard to get everything wired properly.

I ran into problems, however, almost as soon as I started copying CD's. Everything was fine at first, but I was using the unit very heavily. By the second day, it started to flake out on me every once in a while. For example, it would suddenly refuse to copy a CD. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, before I realized just how hot those little discs get in that tray. Being a science teacher, I figured that such heat could be rendering the CD unreadable, so I let it cool for a while and everything was okay.

Then I ran into my second problem. After about two weeks, the unit started to have problems reading blank CDR's and recognizing them. I would put a blank CD into the tray, close it, and get the "initializing" message. After a minute or so of spinning, the screen would read "OPC Error" and stop the drive. At other times it would read, "no disk" or "disk error".

I've read a lot of testimonials on this site already, and a lot of other people have had this problem. I think it has to do with the heating of the unit. This thing gets hot, particularly when you copy several CD's in a row. I've been able to deal with the problem by switiching it off when it gives me the error, but its still pretty twitchy.

My biggest complaint, however, is not the fact that the unit keeps bugging out. It sounds like all CD burners are twitchy, particularly when recording at high speeds. What really makes me mad is that the manual supplied absolutely no information about what "OPC error" really means. It told me what OPC stands for...but that's it. There is also little in the way of customer service numbers in the manual. Very frustrating.

I'm glad to know that I am not the only one having these problems. At this point, I'm not sure if it is worth taking it back. People seem to take their unit back and get another one with the exact same problem. At this point, I'm going to muddle through with it. I'll just have to slow down how many CD's I copy.

All in all, when the thing works it lives up to its advertising. CD quality recordings at twice the speed. When it starts getting flaky, however, you really want to throw it out a window.

price

reliability

In less than one week, this product failed to operate without any flaws that I had previously read about on this site. After inserting the very FIRST cd after the product arrived,the cd tray failed to open. After consulting the manuel and trying other troubleshooting manuevers, I realized that all efforts were in vain. After reading the numerous products complaints on this site about this product, I weighed the pros and cons and decided to give it a try. Well, when the very FIRST cd gets stuck in the tray, one can hardly say they tried it out. In fact, the only thing that I was able to learn about he system before the crash, was that I does play a cd. That's it! I was never able to perform any other function. And, as of the submission, the cd is still stuck. I should have listened to the other people that wasted their money and this product and stayed away!

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none

Have not found it yet

Pick one of the following numbers
1.No tech support. 2. Horrible manual. 3. Unreliable.

Well I have the earlier model of the Philips cd burner.
It worked for about 1 year and the completely shut down.
After a two month battle with Circuit City to find out what was already known ( it doesnt work anymore) I got it replaced with e new model CDR775 ( good thing I got an extended warranty)
well I got the new Philips Cdr burner home. Plugged it in got a KODAK AUDIO GOLD CDR put it in. I got an OPC error.
Went to go look in the manual and read what OPC meant but it didnt not tell me what to do to fix it.
The unit, after boot up and INITIALIZE, immediately goes to the number but will not record on x2. It will record on "record and listen" but I can do that on my PC burner.
Out of SEVERAL name brands of cdr's SOME would record on x 2 sone would not even recognize the cdr's. I thought I had a bad batch of cdr's but I took them over to a bud's house and they work fine.
No tech support. Circuit city SUX SO BAD in their return policy. AS many problems and as flakey as this unit and the last one has been I would NOT recomend it.

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The Analoge recording section !

Playback is edgy,digital and resolution is below average

To start with,my 775 never failed on me as yet and I have been using it 4 months now.I have done more then 50 Cdr:s.
In many ways this product is a dream come true.Forget all the winding and waiting with audio cassettes.Share your music with friends,as well as you do copys from their collection,in the easiest possible way.
Yes,the Cdr gets hot sometimes.And it makes noises when it trys to read an empty Cd tray,and yes ,the trays are as thin and fragile as a butterflys wing.
I am very impressed with the analog recording section.Ive recorded vinyls,cassetes,radio and even from the TV-set.Every time it came out clean and exactly as the original sounded.
Im not so impressed of the playback section,through my new Harman Kardon 3470 it clearly lacked that kind of dimension that my Vinyls have. A lively and engaging kind of sound it has NOT.The 775 sounds Dry and somewhat "Digital", at times even harsh, there is no question about it.My old recordplayer is a wonder of Spacioussness and engaging in music playing, compared to the 775. I had hoped for to use it as my reference CD player too, but I gave that thought up quickly.
To sum up : Very useful piece of machine.A small revolution for Music lovers.Easy too handle once you are familiar with its many ways of recording and programming.
poor playback quality,you should use other CD player for listening for pre-recorded Cd:s and the recorded ones you´ve done on the 775. Especially if your speakers are the revealing kind of musicinformer and/or if your amp is relentlessly natural sounding.I give it a 4 for the overall rating anyway because the price is very good and it is doing its job where its supposed to : To make clean sounding recordings.

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Impressive sound quality of recorded cd-r's
Easy to record, high S/N ratio.

Somewhat flimsy cd trays

After reading some bad reviews, I thought I might run into some trouble with this model, but I'm happy to say I've had no problems as of yet. The reviews here which have said there was problems of overheating and problems of recording I have had no such experience with. The CD-R'S I have used were Maxell & TDK brands. As for the jog shuttle being to sensitive, all it takes is a few seconds to master. The power cord which plugs into the unit is not loose as someone has said. If I remember right the guy had a floor model, which you don't know who touched it and so on. The cd trays are a little flimsy and the instruction manual is 35 pages long, which all you really need to read is 3-4 pages on recording and finallizing the disc.

Whether your recording a whole disc or programing a compilation disc, recording is a breeze. Especially the 2x dubbing speed is real handy when using internal recording.

I'd recommend this deck to anyone.

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None. First cd recorder

Analog output quality is terrible!

I simply want to add to the discussion of this product that the sound quality from the analog outputs from this unit is very poor. If you are interested in purchasing this to use as a primary CD player for your system, I'd advise against that - you will be sorely disappointed. The sound is muddled and thick.

Contrary to other posts for this item, I have found it relatively simple to use. The manual is satisfactory, the headphone output doesn't strike me as too loud, and the quality of the reproductions is high. Overall, I am satisfied, but hope that Philips will improve on the output issue.

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