Alesis Masterlink as a CD Player?

I hope these thrads are not correct. I bought a new Alesis ML 9600 last year and have not used it yet. I was waiting to do some CD recording with a Mark Levinson 37 and 360S Dac. I would like to hear other input. Anyone had problems with theirs. I do not see any on Audiogon for sale, so who is correct? Stereophile or the two who replied to the thread?

Mark,

I have upgraded both the CDRW drive and the Hard drive
on mine. The new hard drive ( 40 gig ) is much quieter
than the original 4.3 gig. I replaced the CDRW because
it was having trouble reading disc's and was getting
very "picky" about which disc's it would record on.
I'm not complaining about the unit. As a recorder, it
is very powerful. I use mine to transfer vinyl. Usually
record at 88.2/24 and let the Alesis down sample it to
redbook.
When you get it set up, I would like to know if your 360S
will lock on an 88.2 signal. I tried to lock with my AVP2
and it will not. Only does at 44,48 and 96?

Joemt.

Mark 7767,

I agree with Avideo and Joemt, that is that the Masterlink does fine for what it's designed--record, rudimentary "editing," and burn redbook CD's. I have spoken with a number of professionals who all agree about the ML's value. I'm just getting to know mine. For CD playing, use a conventional CD player. The Masterlink is just not optimized as a CDP. It is better at editing than the Marantz CD Recorder.

Thanks guys,

I plan on using my Alesis ML 9600 to record compilaton CDs for DJing. I hope my Mark Levinson will lock onto the 88.2/24 signal. If not, I have a dCS Purcell upsampler that I can use with the Mark Levinson 360S and record in standard redbook. I have the new one with 40GB hard drive.

Do you think music stored on the hardrive recorded in standard redbook then upsampled to 24/96 and feed into the Mark Levinson 360S will sound good? I would like to store some playlists for party times.

I bought a 9600 to use as a transport based on friend's recommendation, but it is not user friendly in that the remote doesn't have track access by number which means to get to track 12 you have to push play and then push next track 11 times. The other thing I don't like aobut it is mechanical noise, it reads the disc from a computer drive to the hard drive so it makes some (too much for me) mechanical noise as it reads the CD at high speed. As for sound quality (as a transport) I think it has a lot to offer and is similar to using a (what is that thing? I think it is called a "digital time lens") which clocked the player output to a hard drive and reclocked it out with theoretically low jitter. Final analysis (as a transport), not worth it if you want easy track access and don't like exterraneous noise.

Roger