Numark HDCD1 Dual CD/MP3 Player with Hard Drive

Feature:
The built in gracenote database is great in theory, however at least in my unit only the first disk placed in the machine will be recognised. After the first disk I need to reboot it in order for it to successfully identify the disk. This is supplemented by using the management software to update the track information (just make sure you don't compress before updating, or the CDDB database will fail to identify the tracks). This is of course less than ideal when using the machine live, since you have to take the unit out of commission in order to update the tracks, and you will need Internet access. Yet another issue with the gracenote feature, newer track information uses a numerical genre format, which the HDCD1 does not recognise. So updated tracks cannot be sorted by genre. A firmware update which recognises the new genre format would be very welcome. The built in mp3 compression feature is a plus, however it is extremely slow. To compress to 320kbps mp3, 25 albums, it took over 24 hours. This was assuming the unit did not freeze after about 65% of the compression was complete. I contacted support about this, and the guy provided me with a firmware update (which for some reason is not publicly available). Ever since the update, I have not had a freezing problem. The HDCD1's multitasking abilities leave something to be desired. While compressing, you cannot play stored content, or copy cd's. You also may not copy two cd's at the same time, despite having two CD drives. The software is too intuitive but it works for the most part, that is when its not crashing my computer. Every once in awhile, my perfectly functional windows xp machine will blue screen because of some USB related issue (this usually occurs when updating songs, or deleting tracks). The only reason I give the unit 4 points in this category is because it is able to perform the most necessary of DJ tasks. And some of the other issues can most likely be solved by software, dsp, cddb, and firmware updates.

Quality:
Within a week the first CD drive on my unit started failing. I can no longer use it without constant skipping. This is unacceptable for a unit of its calibre, for this I remove 2 points. The software and firmware is pretty buggy, however I assume eventually numark will release updates which will address these issues. For this reason, I deduct only 1 more point.

Value:
For the money, I think the unit should be faster, and devoid of serious bugs. It takes a considerable amount of time for the unit to boot up and perform compression. Connecting it via USB takes it out of commission, as does performing compression. I give it five points because the dials and displays are good quality.

Desirability:
Forgetting everything I know about this unit, it looks really cool, and the expressed features are very desirable. For this reason I rate it highly in this category.

Sound:
I am rating the sound a 10 because I assume the DSP is of excellent quality, and I can hear no defects using my JBL LSR4300 monitors.

Ease of Use:
This unit is pretty easy to use, however I take a few points from this category because the limitation and bugs in the device reduce its ease of use. The unit has the potential to be so much better, if the firmware and software where up to par and the bugs where worked out.

Support:
There seems to be only email support. It took them about a week to respond, and they did not answer all of my concerns. I sent a few other emails in reference to more severe issues, and I have not gotten a response to those. I am still trying to track down some kind of phone number to call, but so far it seems to only be email based. For such an expensive line of professional products, this is unacceptable.

Overall:
Im summary, it looks cool, it sounds good, but it crashes my computer, doesnt recognise its own genre tag information, freezes unless you have updated firmware which is not published on the numark website, gracenote data wont recognise more than one disk without rebooting the unit, compression takes days, and its only multi-tasking ability is playing two cds at the same time (assuming your CD drive doesnt fail like mine did). Oh ya, and support is lax.

Feature:
Excellent features with the exception that you cannot backup the internal hard drives. So if they crash and you dont have your original music backup up, yer in trouble. I download (I do Pay)songs off the internet and load them from my laptop into the HDCD1 using the manager software, Them make a backup copy onto DVD ....works awesome. I currently have over 7000 songs loaded and I CARRY NO CD'S TO A GIG! Everything is stored. AWESOME SYSTEM!

Quality:
Seems to be made very well

Sound:
sound really does not apply

Support:
I have spoken with Tech support at Numark, and they seem pleasent and knowledgable