damnspynovels

Not that obtuse - especially from the perspective of recording analogue stuff for eventual archival on a CD.

i doubt it's as simple as swapping a chip.

well i'm really surprised you've ever had issues with this. i mean from memory, when I used to record cd's via optical to my old r30 way, way back in the 90s, it copied flawlessly - with accurate total run time (i.e. if a cd ran to 63:23, so did the MD), and full track marks dropped in automatically - and it didn't matter if it was a live album where the crowd noise would run over the end of one track into the start of another, or a DJ mix CD where the sound was of a continuous level - tracks all got marked accordingly. And my JB940 is no different. I just tried it with a CD by the dance act Orbital - where it's pretty much a seamless piece of music for 80 mins but with multiple tracks obviously - and it marked everything. the only weird thing that is different is what i've been going on about all thread, that it doesn't stop when the cd stops. so what am i using? an arcam cd player connected via optical. nothing special - it's supposed to do this. as long as you start the recording with the 'music sync' button on the remote, which puts it into rec/pause - and then hit play on the cd player (and that'll start the recording). it marks all the tracks every time. it just doesn't stop at the end. this is all as per the manual too.

Ok so i can confirm now that my deck exhibits the behaviour exactly as it's meant to be as per the manual. My cause for concern was because its the first time I've noticed the deck continue to record after a CD has finished. I picked a CD to try that is a continuous piece of music - but with track markers - and it copied them exactly as it should. Once finished, the deck continued to record (nothing) for an additional 30 seconds. It then went into Rec/Pause mode, and removed the previous 27 seconds of blank space - resulting in a run time that's approx 3 seconds longer than the CD.

Oh I have it hooked up optically - so it's ok. I'll investigate the level sync dB tonight.

Does it make any difference if the digital signal is electrical? I'm now wondering if i've inadvertently increased the Level Sync db. However I didn't think it affected auto track marking from a CD source via digital.

not sure. it does say in the manual that if you're recording via digital using Music Sync - smart space etc is on by default. are you using music sync or cd sync?

I'm just quoting the manual as to what it's 'supposed' to do on my deck. i'm going to try it tonight and watch - as apparently the display changes to say "smart space" etc, when that's happening. I've seen it do that before but never paid it an amazing amount of attention. But just to recap what I meant: if there's a gap of sound for less than 30 seconds before the sound starts again - it'll reduce that gap to just 3 seconds and continue recording. If the silence is longer than 30 seconds, i think it appends 3 seconds of silence onto the last track, removes the rest and then pauses? So this is what would / should happen after a cd is finished. Then if after 10 minutes there's been no sound, recording goes from pause to stop.

I'm just looking at my manual now - and it looks like it's meant to be this way, ie. it says that to do a sync with a non-sony cd player, you use Music Sync - and it will start, but not stop - unless you manually intervene. It does however say that Smart Space and Autocut will operate regardless of their setting (i.e. if you have them turned off) in these conditions. It doesn't say if it only works thru optical or coaxial though. I'd be interested to know if that's a factor. So it would seem that once my CD is finished playing, the deck continues recording - and as smart space and autocut are active, it'll detect silence of less than 30 seconds, replace it with a space of 3 seconds and continue recording. I'm guessing then that as it's going to continue recording 'nothing', auto cut will kick in after 30 seconds, remove all the blank space (again!), and replace it with 3 seconds - and then pause. So the crux of it is if you're using a non-Sony cd player, your decks will ALWAYS append 3 seconds of space onto every last track of a CD. I suppose that's no big deal, but if you want to make a mix-MD of individual songs from different CDs - it's really annoying to either have to wait 30 seconds after every track for the deck to do it's thing - OR hover over the stop button to do it manually. It's all very weird considering portables don't do this. I can see some logic in having this flexibility on a home deck, but the ability to turn it all off would've been nice But still, mystery solved.

There's always (in the 940's case) the option of using the smart space / auto cut function that detects when theres 30 seconds of silence, removes it and pauses the recording. But that's not really how it ought to be. I swear also it never used to do this.

Oh so you think it's typical behaviour? Weird. I mean I swear that back in the day when I was using portables to record CDs via optical - they'd stop dead on.

Thanks, but yeah - not really the answer I'm hoping for.

I just noticed last night when copying a CD via optical that the MD doesn't stop recording immediately after the CD has finished. I'm pretty sure it should, correct? Is there a setting that I've inadvertently changed that would cause this?

This is all true - I'm not even that bothered by recouping to be honest. If i get enjoyment out of something I don't mind spending money. I just have to justify it to myself Plus I have a very supportive partner in that she doesn't mind the fact I have over 2000 vinyl LPs and almost as many CDs, so she'll support my whims and fancies. But then she's the same with clothes so I guess it evens out

the worst part is throwing good money after bad. I mean, I'm spending more to justify it?