Teac AD-RW900-B CD Recorder and Auto Reverse Cassette Deck with USB

I wanted a CD recorder so I could put lots of my 8-track, vinyl LP and cassette tapes on CD. For the amount that I wanted to convert, I could have bought most of them already on CD cheaper than the cost of this machine, blank CD's, jewel cases and the time taken to do it. But, It is a lot more fun to me to do it myself. So far the Teac AD- RW900 has performed flawlessly. Yes, you do have to use blank CD's labeled for audio recording. Regular CD's will not work. They are easily found on line and at Amazon. You probably will not find them at Walmart or other like department stores. You will need a turntable and, or an 8-track player or deck to plug into the Teac if you want to copy LP's or 8-tracks. It has a dedicated input for turntables with magnetic cartridges. The Teac does have a cassette player and recorder built into it. It does not have an amplifier or speakers. If you want to hear what your recording or listening to,and YOU WILL want to, you have to use the Teac RCA output to plug into you home stereo or other amplifier input. You can also listen with earphones through the earphone jack that has its own volume control. I used a quality amplifier and speaker system designed for computers to plug into the earphone jack. I'm sure you can use any TV sound bar speaker system with a 3.5mm stereo plug into the Teac earphone jack. Some might call it an expensive toy, but aren't lots of things we buy, just an expensive toy. Some like to spend their money at casinos also. Me, I like to stay home and spend my money on this kind of stuff.

This machine has some temperments but overall works very well and automatically. It's complicated to operate and takes some concentration and learning curve. The sound quality is very good. Need to get the proper CD-R discs for it. Will not accept data discs. But so far it's been a great player/recorder.

I must say after owning this heap for 6 months, I don't know how this bears the name TEAC. It most certainly does not compare to any of the TEAC products I knew years ago. In fact, had it not been for Hurricane Sandy in 2012 I would still have my vintage equipment, from the early 80's. This product is already in need of repair as its issues are: 1. It will not read partially recorded CD'S that have not been finalized, so that if you want to scroll through and maybe try to add some more songs, you can't hear what's on there as it just freezes up and displays "CAN'T READ" . 2. It now has become fussy and will not play some MP3's, as it just stopped one day and the entire display screen went blank. The unit then did not respond to anything except the power switch. After a 15 minute shut down, I was able to use the machine (and I use that term loosely) again. 3. When I play factory CD's that have tracks that are connected together, an annoying and noticeable drop out is present when it advances to the next track, so the change over to the next track is not uninterrupted. The control buttons are horrible and function accurately only about 80% of the time. Not good when you are burning a CD as one second of miscue can ruin an otherwise perfect recording. I am not one to complain but after the terrible loss I suffered losing not only my stereo equipment and over half my record and tape collection, I am very, very disappointed in this machine that bears the name TEAC. And after owning a TEAC A-450 cassette deck and a TEAC A3300SX reel to reel deck, which were unbelievably reliable decks, I will never, ever, again consider buying any TEAC equipment of any kind. Oh and by the way, this is the second unit I got as I had to return the first one after 1 day. It would skip at the 10 second mark on the first song of every recorded CD. I think I am negative 2 for negative 2. I should have returned and just got a refund.

Am returning the first one and buying a new one since Amazon can't exchange a defective unit. When I tried to record to USB I got no error message, it said it was recording, and -- it destroyed the flash drive. None of our computers could recognize it as a device. I phoned TEAC support. No, not a factory defective flash drive. Fairly new, good brand recommended by TEAC (Lexar), had been used successfully with 3 different computers. They said the unit was defective, replace it. I'm happy to have the AD-RW900 but there are frustrations. It's very slow reading or preparing a CD. You have to use expensive music CD-Rs or CD-RWs/ And TEAC says not to use Memorex or Maxell, use Sony, TDK or Verbatim which are probably more expensive and harder to find. It will do some automatic track marking when recording on CD but there are many exceptions. Apparently autotrack works with a digital input source (eg MD recordings) because it can read the digital track marks. With a cassette as input source, no track marks -- it records one long track with auto track marking -- unless the songs are separated by at least 3 seconds of silence. Which they probably aren't. You'll have to babysit the recording and use manual track marking. Tedious because you have to keep half your attention on the tape no matter what else you're doing. Recording to CD with a vinyl record as source, autotrack worked because gaps were more than 3 seconds. But I got an extra track (empty) when I paused it. My fault -- If you pause within 2 seconds of previous track's end that won't happen. I think. With a vinyl record and autotrack you can hit Play/Pause to stop recording while you turn the record over. Don't want more than 3 seconds though or you'll get an extra empty track on the CD. The manual says you can start a new track either with Play/Pause or with Record. TEAC support says always use the Record button to divide tracks unless you really need to pause the recording. Recording to a USB device, no matter what the source you will have to use manual track marking. As I said, the USB recording destroyed the flash drive. I had to phone Amazon and talk to a human being before I could make it happen. You have to return it and purchase another one because Amazon doesn't have it in inventory. Recording to CD always creates WAV files (can be read in any CD player) The USB slot on the front is for recording on a flash drive. It only creates MP3s, not wav files. They can be transferred to your computer, obviously. The USB slot on the back can be connected to your computer. It ONLY TRANSMITS SOUND. It does not record or convert the sound to WAV or mp3 files. You'll need to feed it into recording software on the computer. Overall I'm happy to have this unit because "once it's working" it will fill a lot of needs, not as slickly as one might like but quite well for the price. The last cassette deck we bought started eating tapes within a few months. Ditto the last CD player we bought. This unit takes phono input, USB input etc, will archive our stuff onto USB as mp3 files if the new one works correctly, will make audio CD's of cassette or vinyl recordings, and with a Yamaha receiver and a pair of speakers I have a very versatile sound system in the area where I do a lot of my work at home. Hope this is useful.

The unit allowed me to digitize all my old cassettes and several LPs. One drawback is that it does not allow USB recording from the onboard CD player. Good unit but a little expensive..