Alesis Masterlink as a CD Player?

I used one for about a year as a transport. It was a mess and I should have dumped it earlier. I was using it with my Audiomeca Enkiantus DAC and it used to have trouble locking onto it. It is poorly made (look inside) and I had to send it out for repair. Alesis had gone bankrupt and wouldn't honor the warranty - in fact I never got the $100 rebate that was offered. I just chalked it up to experience.

I know a lot of mastering engineers that love it but I wouldn't recommend it for consumer use as a transport.

Ken Golden

As a cd player it's o.k., but you have to deal with
the fact that there is the hard drive spin noise.
It is audible from my listening position, so I don't
use it as a transport.

I agree with the above two posts not to waste your time with the Alesis Masterlink. I bought a used one to do some
mastering here at my studios (I own a media duplication and editing company). It does a nice job for editing to disc, but has a noise level you will probably find unacceptable for home use.
If you are thinking of buying a CD recorder, there are lots of other options available that produce far less noise. I have a Marantz CDR500 - which is a dual well commercial CD player/recorder - that produces almost no noise and will probably do many of the things an Alesis will do at about half the price. More than likely, would serve as a decent playback unit - as it has RCA, balanced, and digital outputs.