|
|
I bought a CDR HD1300 some 4 years ago, paying full retail price for the machine, and spent a lot of time recording favourite tracks from CDs and vinyl records in my collection - all purchased legitimately.
I found the user interface very limited, and ease of use poor, but appreciated what the machine could do. It enabled me to make high quality recordings of many tracks. And after a while I began to understand the user interface.
The main limitations (in my view) of this unit centre around the fact that Yamaha, for copyright protection reasons, do not provide any means of copying the hard-disk, for example for back-up reasons, other than writing CDs. Even though it was four years, I had not written more than a couple of CDs. Another serious limitation related to this is that there is no way to export the files on the HDD to a computer, for example, so that the user can edit recordings from vinyl in software that removes pops and clicks, and then write CDs.
The main way that I used the machine was random play, since it was a great way to play tracks from my selection.
One night, recently, after we had some people over, my wife wanted to turn the machine off. Not being technically ept, she didn't know to simply stop the CD unit playing, and to stop it she turned off the power at the button on the front panel, while the unit was playing. Bad move.
Next morning, when I went to play some tracks, I found the error message "drive check". On checking the manual, I found that means that there is a problem with the HDD. In my review of the manual, I found an important Caution buried on page E-76 of the manual where it says, in a box at the bottom of the page "IMPORTANT. Never turn off power of this unit during playback. The data on the HDD may be damaged."
There are two obvious problems with this. The first is that Yamaha has, in my view, an obligation to draw this to the attention of consumers, probably with a red sticker on the cover of the manual, or on the unit itself. Given that the consequences of turning off the unit while it is playing are so serious - likely complete loss of all of your recordings, title information etc - Yamaha surely should do more to tell us consumers about the problem. On page i of the manual (third page in after the safety cautions) Yamaha provide a list "Caution: Read This Before Operating This Unit" which unfortunately doesn't list this problem.
The second is, surely Yamaha has the technical expertise to design the machine so that a consumer cannot damage the HDD simply by turning the machine off while it is playing back.
I asked my IT support team to have a look at the HDD to see if they could at least recover the files using file recovery software. They found that the files are written in a proprietary format using proprietary Yamaha software, and that there is nothing they can do to recover my files.
I took the machine to the dealer from whom I bought the machine. They commented that 'everybody knows that HDDs fail sooner or later' and that has probably happened with this one. They have sent it off to a specialist service centre, but they are not hopeful that I can recover the files. Most likely I will have to put in a new HDD and start all over again.
One of the limitations if I do so is that I will only be able to put in a HDD that is less than 137 GB, since that is the upper limit of the machine.
I asked the dealer "Well how are we supposed to back-up the HDD to avoid total loss of the data?". He said simple, write it to CDs as the machine is designed to do. However, it would have been nice if Yamaha had made it clear in the manual that a user should take care to do that, since there is no other way to back up the HDD. He said that a better solution these days is to purchase a turntable with USB connection to a computer, or a pre-amp with USB connection (he recommended the NAD PP3).
Clearly, whatever its other strengths (and it has many), the CDR HD1500 has some fundamental design flaws that should at least be drawn to the attention of users. Unfortunately Yamaha choose not to do this (they must know about the problem) and in so doing let the user down badly.
One last caution. The manual (downloadable on-line) has never been updated, and does not provide details of suitable replacement HDDs. They do provide a HDD Installation Manual for the CDR-HD1300, but it recommends only 40GB and 80GB hard disks, not the 120GB HDD that my machine is fitted with. Something of an oversight.
Frankly, I am amazed that a leading consumer electronics company like Yamaha could allow this to happen. I am VERY disappointed in them. |
|
Author: Tice
28-11-2019 02:44:33