More Info on HHB CD-R MEDIA

The equipment looks very nice. I haven't been able to use it yet because I am waiting for an optical cable which had to be purchased separately (found a seller on Amazon.) The manual states you can only use a 3 foot length optical cable (go figure - I ordered a 6'). It comes with standard RCA type audio cables.

The equipment also requires special CD media. HHB was kind enough to ship one in the box. The recorder will not work with high speed (anything over 12x) CD's. The recorder burns at 1x. I read another review from someone who thought the machine was very slow. Well, it is, but it is archival quality and pretty much assures your recording will play on any commercial CD player. The recorder will record on RW CD's but the manual states that these CD's will not be recognized by many commercial CD players. You are pretty much confined to buying HHB CD media to use in this recorder.

HHB cd-r Media

I don't understand the comments about this machine not working with some media. I've never had a problem, and I've burned over 100 discs with this thing in the years that I've had it. Consumer data discs as well as proper "music" CD-R's.

However, I only use made in Japan Fuji/Maxell/Sony discs, and made in Taiwan TDK Riteks.

I've never specifically had to use "slower" media either. I question whether those having problems with this machine are using poor quality discs.


A good place online to shop for these HHB Cd-r Media is here.

(I am using 32x made in Japan Maxell CD-R's right now.)

The only problem I have had (hence 4 stars and not 5), is that I use the HHB 830 to do "needle drops" from lps to transfer them to CD-R, then rip the CD-R's to my PC. *Sometimes* my PC chokes trying to read tracks recorded by this machine that play fine elsewise. The solution is to skip the 1st sample or two on tracks that have this problem, and rip the rest of the track. Copy Range vs Copy Track (in EAC).

I really love this machine other than that small problem. I record digitally, analogly, from lp, from DVD (some DVD soundtracks of live releases are better mastered than their CD counterparts), etc. I really like how you can adjust the recording level of both analog and digital inputs. Some machines don't allow you to change the digital input level.