Feature:
The ability to mix and burn a CD right then is a major factor with me. And while I rarely use the mastering features, I prefer to send a finished mix out to a fresh set of ears with mastering specific equipment, for demos it'll do the trick.

Quality:
Arrived flawless and in 2 years of studio work it has never failed.

Value:
The combo or price, quality and features make this a lot of bang for the buk!

Desirability:
I don't know if it's sexy, I'm more into the practical applications. It's a piece of rack gear.

Sound:
Clean, clear digital sound. If you're okay with with digital this is as good as it gets.

Support:
I've never had a problem. No news is good news...

Overall:
The ability to mix, burn a CD and immediately listen to exactly the same sound that the mastering engineer will hear on a variety of sources - Monitors, home stereo, car, boom box... - has changed the way I mix. I always hated cassettes...

I feel the masterlink is the best purchase i've made.I basically use it as a two-track recorder and the results are excellent.high resolution recording,sample rate conversion on-board effects,all for under a grand,and i upgraded to to a 20 gig hardrive in less than an hour.And it's a cd duplicater,in my opinion it's a must have unit for all home studios.

I have been using the Masterlink since it came out and it is so far above any other standalone mix down recorder out there, I cannot think of anything else I would rather have, even the dsp in it rivals the best I have heard on DAW systems. Thanks Alesis and this site for the opportunity to rant.

This thing makes producing CDs stupid simple. The functions are very clear and easy to use.
The sound of this thing as a CD player is pretty durned good, as is that of the DSP options. The look-ahead limiter is absolutely brilliant; I use it on just about every project to get the levels right at the top. It works much better than normalization, and takes a tenth of the time of fiddling with a compressor.
The DSP options are, as I said, good, but not great. I look at them as a final touch, as a complement to everything else that I can do to the music, and I think that's what it's intended as. No, it is not Howie Weinberg in a box, but it'll add a little polish to your work.
I have to agree with the comment about hard drives, but must also add that it's pretty hard to actually run out of space -- most people are going to archive their music somewhere else, and if you're really pressed for HD space, you can always use the CD24 feature to burn them off in full resolution. (Plus, if you don't mind voiding yer warranty, just crack the thing open and put in a new drive.)
I got this thing on sale, but I would definitely recommend it even at full price. It does exactly what it's supposed to do.

Feature:
An optical in and out is desired.

Quality:
Can't trust mine to do anything but straight forward 16 bit CD burning, and then there are artifacts such as clicks between trax, even after updating the OS. My unit also will not perform the data back-up. I'm thinking of buying another one and checking it out totally before the warranty expires, and just putting this one in my home stereo rack.

Value:
My attitude would be different if all of the features on mine worked. I may purchase another, grudgingly, and will be very happy if all the features work per manual instructions works.

Desirability:
I badly want one that works as advertised. My singer/songwriter wife died of her illness, and having to purchase another one to master and archive her DAW based recordings is like a kick in the head. Now I have to buy another one, or take the old DAT out of mothballs.

Sound:
Sound is great except for an occasional click - very irritating, ususally have to re-record. Also, mine is flawed and wont do andy of the higher spec (20, 24 bit) recording.

Support:
Unfortunately, did not discover problems til after warranty expired because of my wife's very serious illness, but there is virtually no support after the warranty expires. My only solution is to buy another one and check it out thoroughly before the warranty expires, and put the lemon that I got into my stereo system as a cd player.

Overall:
If mine worked as advertised, it would be the heart of my post production efforts, and I would keep it as long as it worked. An optical in/out would be icing on the cake. In good working order, I'd have given this unit all 10's.

Feature:
Everthing that is needed is provided. The Normalizer DSP is very usefull. It would be nice to have more than 16 playlists. It would also be noce to be able to drop a 100gig drive and use all the space. The only real knock I have is the unit has no RS-232 port for computer control.

Quality:
Top notch. This is a very solid device. The buttons feel solid and high quality. Front panel is thought out and logical.

Value:
$799.95 for this mastering deck is outstanding deal. Big bang for the buck.

Desirability:
I have it!

Sound:
Output quality is very good using digital or analog outputs.

Support:
I had questions that were answered in 24 hr.

Overall:
A very nice recorder. Lots of features for editing songs. Support for high sample rates and rendering of 24-bit CD's.

Feature:
I dont use this machine like musician

Quality:
The only thing that I can say about this,is that this machine must be factory in Japan, I belive more in produts from this country,too many companies make the products in countries like China Taywan etc,to get cheapets price in builts their products,but in America peple like me know a lot about electronics products.

Value:
When I boutgh this product it was the best in the market but not right now

Desirability:
good

Sound:
this machine came iriginally with 4 g.b. hard drive and I change to 60 g.b. for mayself,but the problem was when I tried to change de burner for another faster it dint not worked.you can not use this machine for too long time because it turns off by itself and this machine damages to many blanks c.d.s.If I would have the chance to get back my money,I would do it,because definitely I make better work in my computer,this machine does not have the capacity to make mp3 music like computer does,is very complicate to learn to work well,the speed of the burner is too low,however I burn my c.d.s only at 8x speed.I would like to get the leatest sofwear,from you to see what happe with the marterlink

Support:
The only time that needed from you it was very fine

Overall:
to be honest before I know about computers this machine was the best for me, because this machine does not need any computers to work.but right now I know a lot of computers and make to many works that the masterlink does not make. I sugest that in future models of this machine,you include anothers features like makes Mp3 music not needing computers, and dvds and put c.d.burner faster at least 12x spedd.

Feature:
I use it for concert and demo recording, off a mixing board, track it (and do simple editing like track length and dropping tuning sessions); if I need more editing, I send it to the computer. I also use it for digitizing our library of old albums and cassettes (after passing them through a mixer for track level adjustment and occasional EQ). For that, it's been almost perfect. Wish list: keyboard for naming tracks, faster CD burner (it's only 4X - although I've never had an unplayable CD from it, and maybe there's a connection), more than 16 playlists. 30 hours of recording is plenty, although it encourages me to be lazy in cleaning up, and it's 50% more than 16 burnable playlists.

Quality:
I'd have given it a 10 except that when my disk got full, and I tried deleting audio files, it hung and I had to reformat the drive. That incidentally wiped some critical unburned work, but luckily I had simultaneously recorded to DAT. Now I never let the disk get full, and reformat periodically.

Value:
Paid $1000 for mine five years ago, and don't regret it.

Desirability:
Nothing sexy about it, just a very useful piece of gear.

Sound:
I have one of the first available with the 60GB drive. Sound has been perfect, never a single artifact - with one exception. I tried increasing the volume on a 16-bit track, and felt it produced distortion (I'm assuming it's inherent in the process), so now if I have to do that, I'll use 24-bit - which is what it's for.

Ease of Use:
Takes some figuring out, but fairly easy once you get the hang of it. Easy to mark, trim, join tracks, shift audio files to different playlists. Especially handy to be able to just turn it on and forget it - no elapsed time to keep track of, no media to change - and edit it down and track it later.

Support:
Never had to use it, so I have no idea how good it is.

Overall:
My next purchase will probably be a high-end CD burner like the Tascam CC-222mkIII (which takes out some of the middle steps in transcribing a library, and provides simultaneous archival backup on a separate medium), but I'm in no hurry, since the Masterlink does just fine.

Quality:
I had mine for about 18 months and really liked everything about it until one day when I turned it on the screen read fatal error . I knew from past experience this was not good . to make a long story short , the power unit went bad and distroyed the CD burner and the hard 20 gig drive. the repair cost me around 475.00 after shipping cost. I starting to rethink Alesis products.

Support:
Quick response using e-mail

Overall:
Beats any PC program due to the learning curve

The only thing I have noticed, on more than one machine, is that the Masterlink is a bit finicky about playing CDs.....but to be fair, the machine is not honestly a CD player.
I'm sure that some of problem has more to do with the CD used, than with the machine.