I agree with Ejlif and Dopogue. And use a Marantz CDR500 Professional recorder (dubbing). I either cannot tell the copies from originals, or sometimes even think that the CDRs are better, ie smoother. But in a blind test, I'm sure I couldn't tell them apart. I've owned 4-5 CD recorders, and found that the Pioneer units (W739 and W37 Elite) also make excellent copies.
Also, I've had no problem copying HDCD discs, ie HDCD shows up on my ML 360S DAC when playing the copy, just like it does when playing the original, and the HDCD copies sound just as good. The default recording speed of the Marantz is 2X and I've used it a lot with excellent results, ie I can't tell CDs made at 1X from those made at 2X-- but I don't consider 2X to be "high speed".
A year or two ago, M. Fremer of Stereophile compared CDRs made by 3 consumer grade CD Recorders to originals and could not reliably tell the difference between the originals and the copies, and he was impressed with them. But for copying LPs to CD, the most expensive CD Recorder (a $1000-$1500. Denon I think), was clearly superior to the cheaper recorders, ie the Denon had a much better AD converter. Cheers. Craig
