I agree with the above two posts not to waste your time with the Alesis Masterlink. I bought a used one to do some
mastering here at my studios (I own a media duplication and editing company). It does a nice job for editing to disc, but has a noise level you will probably find unacceptable for home use.
If you are thinking of buying a CD recorder, there are lots of other options available that produce far less noise. I have a Marantz CDR500 - which is a dual well commercial CD player/recorder - that produces almost no noise and will probably do many of the things an Alesis will do at about half the price. More than likely, would serve as a decent playback unit - as it has RCA, balanced, and digital outputs.
mastering here at my studios (I own a media duplication and editing company). It does a nice job for editing to disc, but has a noise level you will probably find unacceptable for home use.
If you are thinking of buying a CD recorder, there are lots of other options available that produce far less noise. I have a Marantz CDR500 - which is a dual well commercial CD player/recorder - that produces almost no noise and will probably do many of the things an Alesis will do at about half the price. More than likely, would serve as a decent playback unit - as it has RCA, balanced, and digital outputs.