Simon Pope takes Denon's new CDR-W1500 'twin deck' CD recorder for a spin.

Compared to all the fuss over the respective launches of SACD and DVD-A, the industry's been surprisingly quiet on the digital recording front of late.  A couple of years ago, a format war between MiniDisc and CD-R was raging, but now it seems that world-wide MD sales have bombed to an embarrassing low. CD-R/W by contrast now looks the format of choice for digital recording. 

It's important to remember that, with all the high resolution format hype, CD recorders constitute a good proportion of top selling silver disc products in this country. DVD has put a stop to Compact Disc's growth, but for those who wish for music only, a CD-R offers the chance of quality playback plus, of course, the opportunity to record. 

Twin deck CD-R/W recorders are nothing new. Philips has had a model on the market for almost two years and there are other double deckers from Pioneer and JVC too. It's a great idea that makes the CD burning process a heck of a lot easier. The traditional downside to the double decker is the playback quality - with all the circuitry and controls the sound is often poorer than a decent £150 CD player. I was looking forward to seeing if Denon, with its redoubtable audiophile experience, could improve on this. 

BOX CLEVER
Features and facilities abound on the CDR-W1500. Inside the large chassis are two Philips mechanisms - one transport and one CD burner - as well as a Pacific Microsonics' HDCD chip which will copy the HDCD sub-code information over from the source disc to the CD-R/W. Round the back are two pairs of selectable digital outputs (coaxial and optical) plus the usual analogue outputs. The machine is CD Text compatible and the burner can record at double speed with synchronisation direct from the machine's own transport. There's a choice of three sample rates (32/44.1/48kHz) and both mechanisms can work simultaneously, so budding Pete Tongs out there are also catered for.

The overall look of the CDR-W1500 is classic Denon. The machine is a tad larger than average and is pretty sturdy too. The aluminium front panel constitutes a veritable button fest of controls, including a jog dial and headphones level. The supplied remote is in the DVD mould and is very comprehensive, all functions and recording variations can be controlled from the luxury of your armchair.

OPERATION
Those who always read the instruction manuals before daring to touch a knob on their new purchases may find the CDR-W1500 frustrating. Such is the mail-order-catalogue thickness (33 pages in each language) of the manual, it could well take a weekend's bedtime reading before you master all the functions. However, I skimmed through the less familiar bits for half an hour or so and found myself fiddling without too many hiccups. I started by double speed dubbing the new Rage Against The Machine 'Renegades' CD - purely for my own purposes, officer. 

The setting up and operational procedure was fairly painless and the results excellent. Digital copies were spot on; there was no discernible audible difference between the master and its first generation offspring. Although (as you'd imagine) not an HDCD disc, this does however have CD Text which was duly copied onto the CD-RW as well. During this recording I tried some of the 1500's features, such as fade-ins and fade-outs with times of between one and fifteen seconds, and setting intro scan play times (five to thirty seconds). All were executed with commendably little fuss. I also synchronised the playing of a single track successfully.

Next up was a bit of analogue recording in the shape of my New Order 'Movement' LP and a Michell GyroDec. Switching the 1500 into 'synchro off' mode and into ATM (Auto Track Mark), I set to work. The analogue recording level is set with the jog dial and is stored in the machine's memory, which is lost if the 1500 isn't powered up for three days. This recording came out a treat, with all the nuances and smoothness of the vinyl version beating my pre-recorded CD of the same album hands down, due to a better level and strangely less mechanical feel to the music.

PLAYBACK
Assessing playback-only, taking advantage of the HDCD compatibility, I loaded up my awesome Reference Recordings version of Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring, played by the Minnesota Orchestra. This disc has an amazing dynamic range which was duly picked up by the 1500. Ambience and spaciousness were excellent, with the woodwinds sounding light and ethereal. Bass, in the form of some limelight-stealing bass drum antics, was tight and deep.

Moving to less lavishly recorded music courtesy of Supergrass's eponymous third album, the 1500 sounded less convincing than it did with the fine fare of the Reference Recording. Although smooth, fast and rhythmic, things were rather 'mechanical' in the vein of, say, a good £180-£220 machine. This was most noticeable in the upper registers, which failed to open up and sounded thin as a consequence. There wasn't the depth and breadth that you'd find with a similarly priced single CD players, although the overall sound still proved pleasant enough to the ear and totally inoffensive. 

Without a doubt the chaps at Denon have put a lot of stuff into one box here, and to a certain extent they've succeeded. For its range of facilities and functions, this machine simply can't be bettered. Twin decks don't play CDs as well as similarly priced single decks, but the Denon CDR-W1500 is perhaps the best sounding of the double deckers available. With this in mind, if you're in the market for such a machine then this is well worth auditioning. 

Copies are virtually identical to the source, and for such a complicated looking machine the ergonomics are excellent. As a CD player the 1500 can sound a little ragged and thin sometimes, but is generally smooth enough and fairly typical of Denon's single CD player sound. Given decent discs it makes a nice enough sound and is perfectly acceptable with poor ones too. 

MEASURED PERFORMANCE
An inexpensive recorder like this one with two CD mechanisms, two replay D/As and a record A/D will, inevitably, be built from budget parts. There was performance variation as a result, the CD replay section giving a flatter frequency response than the record transport. With a little bass loss and extra distortion the latter gives worse result than the former, so playing CDs is best done on the play-only mechanism. 

From a record perspective the Denon manages satisfactorily, but it doesnít reach the standards of recent Philips hi-fi recorders, for example. Frequency response gets wobbly above 3kHz and starts to roll down above 8kHz, a performance similar to good cassette tape. 

Whilst distortion was low enough at ordinary music levels, measuring 0.044% at -30dB, further down the dynamic range it rose considerably, reaching 1.4% at -60dB for example, four times that of a quality recorder. Noise through budget A/Ds is always on the high side, in this case resulting in a -84dB noise figure. Although higher than the -96dB target value for a 16-bit system it remains low enough to make hiss inaudible in use unless very low recording levels are used. 

Input sensitivity was a reasonable 550mV. Older tuners and similar sources give around half this so theyíll only get the record display up to -6dB, a point to bear in mind if going into an ageing system. This will give an effective hiss level of 78dB - good, but not wonderful, about the same as chrome tape on a cassette deck, with Dolby C. In other words, a slight hiss might be perceptible. 

A deck like this, crammed with facilities, does sacrifice performance. Denon do a good enough job at the price in my view. NK

WORLD VERDICT
Relatively easy to use and crammed full of functions and facilities. Playback for a twin deck machine is better than the norm. Recommended.