Alesis Masterlink as a CD Player?

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

I have one. Its not for use as a CD player. Its really a mastering editing tool for high resoluition 24/96 archiving.
I record Vinyl onto it and it comes out very well.

Vincent

The ML is too noisy and too cumbersome to be used as a transport. It does what it's designed to do quite well, but it was never designed to be used as a transport for a serious audio system. OTOH I do use it as a transport when I want to break-in a component and need to put a CD on endless repeat. I'd rather burn up its cheaply-replaced CD-RW drive on stuff like that than the expensive drive mechanism in my primary transport.

I just read that the Alesis was selected as a class A componnets by Stereophile. Why if all the threads here point to a noisy, complicated to use, poorly built, etc. unit. I guess I will have to hook mine up after I get back to the US to see for my self.