Pioneer PDR-555RW CD Recorder

I read these reviews a lot to help me decide what to buy, so this is my contribution to help others. I compared a lot of brands and models in my search for a good value CD recorder to make CDs from some the 350 old records I've been hanging on to for over 30 years. I found various models on E-bay, then compared features and reliability by checking out reviews here and also other on-line audio review sites. After a lot of consideration, I decided the PDR555RW was the best for my purposes. I bought mine used on e-bay for $175. Set up instructions in the manual are easy to understand and we were in business in a few minutes. It is important to note that these recorders are a bit deeper in size than most other stereo components. Mine still fit into my cabinet, but required drilling a hole where the power cord comes out the back of the unit. So add an inch or so to the units depth dimension to accomodate that, its not a problem if you have access to the back of the cabinet, but for for a built in cabinet it might be a small problem. I don't have a digital source so I can only talk about the analog recording, but it does a fine job! I've made about 40 CD's in the two weeks that I have had it. Not a problem, not a glitch. Playback is fine in all of my other DVD and CD players with the exception of my Pioneer DV-505 DVD player, but the instruction manual for that player specifically says that it won't work with CD-Rs. Great sound, perfect recordings, easy to use. Manual track entry is necessary for recording albums as the low level noise between tracks is too much input for the automatic track entry to recognize the space. This isn't a glitch in the recorder, the manual states right up front that you need to do manual with most analog sources for that very reason. I will say that lifting the tone arm does key the automatic track entry, but I only did that to check it out, you'ld be crazy to do that, much easier to just press the manual track button. Pausing between tracks also enters a new track. I plan to get an optical cord and make a SACD to CD copy from my SACD player in the future, and I have no reason to suspect that the recording functions will behave any less perfectly than it has in analog. Another note about this machine, it weighs about 3 pounds more than the more current models by Pioneer. Take from that what you will, to me it indicates that its got stronger "bones". The buttons on the remote are on the small side, but it isn't difficult to use by any means.