Great sound, ease of use, and relatively inexpensive.

Marking tracks while recording vinyl.

Read Jason's review below. He provides a terrific summary on the features of this machine. I cannot do better than he has so instead I will share with you my first few hours with the machine.

Received the 609 this Saturday after what must have been a year of research and deliberation. I decided on this machine because of its ratings, value, and ease of use compared to the computer methodology. I considered buying the new audio component Yamaha CDR-HD 1000 for $1000 because it has some great features. But the value and reviews on the Pioneer were too good to pass up and every critic review raved about the machine (http://www.ecoustics.com/Home/Home_Audio/CD_Recorders/CD_Recorder_Reviews/).

After opening the box, I warmed my system (Adcom amps/preamps and B&O turntable) for about 30 minutes while I reviewed the owner's manual. Selected a vinyl copy of Tom Verlaine's 1979 debut for a test run. Qued up a $1 Memorex music CD-R on "manual" and prepared to mark all tracks with the "record-pause" button on the remote from the luxury of my couch.

The machine allowed me to adjust the analog recording level control to keep it at 0 db or less. I hit the button to start the recording. At the end of side 1, I hit the "stop" button. Requed side 2 and began the process again. After that I grabbed Verlaine's "Words from the Front" and got it all recorded. Grabbed "Dreamtime" and packed the CD with more songs pushing the "time" button to see precisely how much time remained. Got to 79 minutes, 58 seconds and I stopped the recording without abbreveating a song. Amazing. Hit the finalize routine and stepped into the other kitchen for a A&W and within a few minutes the disk was complete.

One by one, I took the newly minted CD to my home Adcom CD player, my car, small Sony system in my home office, and a portable Pioneer. Cranked up the volume. The disk was beautiful, stunning sound that exceeded my expectations. Goodbye Nachamichi. Then I went on a tear to get those Guadalcanal Diary albums on CD (their CDs are out-of-print and selling for $25-$40 on eBay). They recorded great. Then the Killer Whales paired with the Swimming Pool Q's and Del Fuegos filler, Mother Earth's "Making a Joyful Noise" and "Living with the Animals," the Searchers two mid-1970s records, Camper Van Beethoven, and...well you get the picture.

What joy to record your favorite, lost music to listen in the car. The CDs sound really good, incredible fidelity. The track noise is there but not real noticable or annoying; clean sounding. I could not believe how easy it was to make a CD and so far I have not ruined a blank. I scan the cover art and make neat liners for my slim jewel cases. I am one happy camper.

I have been told that this machine is no longer being made. I had to call a number of internet stores before I finally found one so if you are interested in this machine, do not tarry. Makes me wonder if Pioneer's next generation is going to be better or will the record companies find another way to charge us for music we already own.

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None.

Easy to use, cd text writer, great for burning vinyl and casettes on the fly with the manual synchro.

Sometimes the recorder doesn't write each track. It may write an entire disc as a single track.

This was the first cd recorder I ever bought. Best Buy sold their floor model to me for 150. I thought I would shoot the dice, given the price was nice. I have been using cd burners on computers for about 4-5 years now. This cd recorder isn't as flexible as a cd burner but still allows you to easily (a lot easier then on computer) transfer vinyl and casettes onto cd(the initial reason I purchased this). I was surprised at the sound quality created from a LP. With any analog source, you have to be there essentially "on call" to manually put in the breaks between songs if you desire tracks on the final bruned copy. Otherwise with the noise created by an old LP the recorder thinks its one continous song. The only BEEF i have with this unit is that it can not detect breaks in songs. But hey if i want to dub a cd i will just go to my computer and do that muchmuch faster. It's not too bad of a unit to burn a mix either if you have a multi-disc changer. The time it takes for the discs to change in a changer is enough for the cd recorder to set tracks. This isn't a perfect unit but for the money it is a good choice if you can land it cheap like I did.

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computer cd burners

Couldn't be any easier to use. Ruined discs have been my mistake. Can actually make CD copies that sound better than some originals.

Doesn't always recognize track changes when recording copy to copy.
Duplicating an 80 minute CD takes...80 minutes (no double speed; get a dual deck unit for that)

Believe the hype.

You don't see a lot of perfect 5.0 ratings on many products unless 1 or 2 people have reviewed it. This has 18 and counting, and still a 5.0.

This has become the most vital piece of equipment in my setup. I make copies of anything I want, mostly to make compilation CDs for use in the car or my office. The adjustable recording levels in both digital and analog modes is a feature I use all the time. Many CDs, especially older titles that haven't gone through the inevitable trendy "remastered" version, often sound very quiet in comparison to newly recorded releases made with better equipment. With this machine, you can raise the recording level of the old songs and place them right after a newly recorded song without noticing any difference (if your home audio equipment costs more than your car, you may notice a difference; but if that's the case, why the @$%# are you reading reviews of a $200 recorder??)

This machine also has what is referred to as a "synchro" function for recording. For example, if you want to record track 7 of a CD, and only track 7, use the synchro function. Recording begins precisely when track playback begins, and ends precisely at the end of the track. That way if the phone rings with 30 seconds left, answer it without worrying about recording that lame track 8. There is also a fader function which I use exhaustively; fade out the last 10 seconds of the already-fading end, and doing this enough allows maximal use of disc space (I don't have a single 80 minute disc recording under 79:45). And I have never once waited more than 2 minutes to finalize any disc. I pack 'em as full as I can, and finalizing is a snap.

The main drawback in this unit is its full disc recording, mostly of copies. If friends of mine want a copy of a disc I've made, I can either pull the tracks off the original CDs again (um, no) or copy my copy. First, this MUST be done analog-style; the machine has a copyguard feature. I don't quite understand this whole concept: I can copy a disc from the original, but in order to prevent me from mass-copying CDs and starting my own piracy business, and can't digitally copy my copy. Never mind the fact that I can make 1,000 digital copies of the original since that's what I started with to begin. Anyway, your gnarly '80s metal ballads 2-CD set you made has to be recorded in the analog mode (which sounds just fine). But here's another catch: while recording the disc, if you pack as much on there as I do and your space between songs is less than 2 seconds, it may not recognize track changes. So tracks 3 and 4 become a nine-minute track 3. To combat this, if you want the copy to be the same, you sit there for 80 minutes and press the button between songs to manually start a new track (you can't go back and renumber tracks when recording is complete). This makes copying entire discs painful (I don't think it's quite so bad when recording original discs), but to me it's minor since I use mine almost exclusively for compilations anyway.

If you've actually read this far, stop what you're doing and order this machine. You won't be disappointed. I actually liked this so much that when I bought a DVD player it was a Pioneer, and when I bought a new car CD player it was a Pioneer. Great value, and an outstanding product.

Build quality, looks, features, brilliant sound, flexible,
record from anything to C.D.

Nothing in my view

This is a fantastic machine. Sound quality is the same as
the original and it is easy to work. There are lots of
features like synchro recording, manual/auto recording
level, manual track marking (if you don't want any space between tracks, useful for compilations), and you can
record tracks from different C.D.s onto one blank one!!!
Sound quality is great and you can monitor it through
headphones. Record from anything (including satellite
broadcasts) to C.D. !!!
Brilliant for someones first recorder, like me, and
goes well with a C.D. multichanger, like the Pioneer
PD-F1007.

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Computer C.D. recorder

Great Product at a Great price. Easy to use as a cassette deck.

None

The Pioneer 609 is a very worthwhile purchase. I was waiting
for the price to drop on a stand alone CD recorder from a
well known name and this is it! For under $275 you get a device to record CDs from any audio format with ease and great fidelity. In a world filled with electronic gadgets
billed as "Must Have" buys, this one makes sense for me.
I don't need a cell phone or a dish for TV, but having
the ability to listen to bootleg tapes and rare LP's in
the car and on my portable CD player is a "Modern Convience" I highly recommend. Service from www.thecameraclub.com was another plus that makes this
one a winner! Functions well as a second CD player also..
Sound quality on self recorded and regular CDs is outstanding, full bodied and musical. Get the idea I like it?

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Price, features, ease of use, sound quality

None for the price

I purchased the PDR-609 based on the recommendation of my dealer, along with the favourable reviews I had seen on this site and in the UK hi-fi press. For a while I had been trying to decide wich recording format to invest in (ie CD-R or minidisc) and when I saw this unit on sale for £199 that helped me make my mind up.

I had also recently taken delivery of a new car which has a CD changer in the boot and, as I've never been that keen on taking first generation CD's out with me in the car, buying a CD recorder to make copies or my own compilations seemed like a very sensible idea. I also like the idea of being able to record from vinyl (I own a Rega 3 turntable and a fair amount of vinyl) so that I can archive a lot of my fave records onto CD. I haven't tried to do any of this yet but certainly intend to, so this review is based purely on digital recording from CD.

The PDR-609 is a piece of cake to operate. If you're after a high quality CD recorder to copy or compile discs (and for sensible money) you really can't go wrong here. Once it's out of the box you simply plug it in, hook it up to your CD player with a coaxial or optical digital cable (coax is best) and you're ready to copy your fave CD's onto CD-R or CD-RW audio discs.

In terms of sound quality, the PDR-609 is a reasonable playback machine but it's not as good as my Arcam CD72. Then again, it's primary function is a recording device and at this it does a superb job. Even audiophile discs are indistinguishable from the originals. The machine is easy to use, the manual easy to understand and it looks good in the hi-fi rack. Pioneer have produced a real winner with this product. Go get yourself one!

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Arcam CD72

Sound quality, ease of use

None

I'm a novice with hi-fi so I won't get too technical. After doing a fair bit of research I went for this unit and I'm very pleased I did. Its very easy to use and makes excellent quality recordings. I also use it to play CD's and I really can't distinguish the difference between this unit and my Arcam Alpha 1 player! Hats off to the guys at Pioneer. If you're in the market for a quality CD Recorder at a very good price put this one at the top of your list.

CD text capability. It works with CopyCon (SCMS tool device). Inputs and Outputs. Able to monitor a source. Fade in and out is adjustable. Auto Track Increments can be set at 1,3,5 minutes (not seconds). Finalization is a lot faster than its predecesor Pioneer 509, 2 minutes faster.

Just going through initialization takes longer than ordinary CD player. But it's not a big deal.

Well, the reason I purchased this was because of my Copy Con wouldn't work with my Philips CDR 870. And I check around the internet about the rave reviews of the Pioneer. Comparing the Pioneer and Philips is like night and day.
Philips of course, is a bit older so it is not fair to say is a true comparison. Overall, for a buck, this beats out the Pro-Grade unit. The only thing is that this unit doesn't accept the regular disc. But comparing the specification against Pro-Grade (TASCAM CDR700) unit, you would be surprise that this unit can beat out any CD Recorder (stand alone unit only) any day....PEACE!

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Sony MD Recorder. Works somewhat the same but MD is more versatile than CD recorder.

Both analog and digital level control, the analog input works just like a tape deck, you can raise and lower on the fly. you can also do that with the digital input, but it's a little more complicated. Sounds great, identical to my Pioneer DVC-503 DVD player, as it should because it has the same D/A section I think.

Takes a while to get used to, any problems I had were from inexperience. If you burn right up to the time limit of your cd-r, I've noticed it takes over a half-hour to finalize the disc, as opposed to the normal 2 minutes.

I've had no major problems with it so far. Since I do a lot of mixes, I've found it's hard to make analog copes of my mixes that I did through the digital inputs. Because of the copy protection, I had to run the mix into the analog inputs to make a copy. This is a problem when using auto-tracking because it won't add a track if there's less than 2 seconds of silence between songs. I like to make my mixes a little tighter than that. The solution to this I've found for making mixes is to record them though the analog inputs, which also allows me to even out the levels between songs. Then you can make as many direct digital copies of the mixes for your friends as you want (it will number a new track only when the track number changes). I can't hear the difference doing it this way as opposed to direct digital, though maybe some folks can. Recording from vinyl has been great too. I've been using Memorex Music cd-rs and have had no problems at all with them. I've been finding them at Super K-mart at a VERY good price of $12 per 30 pack of 80 minute AUDIO CD-rs. That's almost as good as normal data cd-rs. The only coasters I've made are from when I've goofed up somehow. I haven't experimented with using CD-RW's because I haven't felt like spending the money.

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Pioneer PDR-609 CD Player/Recorder
Features CD-R and CD-RW Recording/Playback, Digital Synchro Recording for all tracks, Sampling Rate Converter (with Through Mode), Auto Finalization, Name clip for 3 titles.

CD-R and CD-RW Recording/Playback
Sampling Rate Converter (with Through Mode)
Erase Functions for recorded CD-RW discs include Last-Track Erase Mode, All-Track Erase Mode, Multi-Track Erase Mode, Disc Erase Mode and TOC Erase Mode
Digital REC Volume
Digital Synchro Recording for all tracks
Double speed for to finalize your discs
Digital/Analog Recording Volume Balance
Name clip for 3 titles
Name memory for 3 titles
Digital Servo Circuits to Optimal Gain and Offset Values for Supreme Stability
Digital Fader
Auto Finalization
Analog Source Manual Level REC Volume
Dimensions: 16 9/16" (W) x 4 3/16 (H) x 11 5/8" (D)
Weight: 7 lbs. 11 oz
Get it for: $279.99