Sony HARD1000 Review

Overall Rating

Stylish
Great sound
Easy to use once programmed

No optical output
Learning curve required

How you plan on using the Sony HARD1000 hard drive recorder will be the difference on whether you should buy this or not. For me, it is an ideal way of storing all my music and having it very accessible. I was able to download via analog inputs all my LP's, audio cassettes, and concert VHS and DVD's. Internally, I was also able to download all my CD's. All analog recordings are done in real time, while CD recordings can be done in 2x.

Once downloaded, a PC is a must. Don't even try to label your music using the remote. I hooked mine up to the PC with Windows XP. It took a little help from Sony support who had to send me new software. They were very helpful. The CDDB that is accessed online will recognize most CD's and give you the ability of labeling all your tracks for you. This also comes in really handy when you borrow CD's and don't have the track information. However, any recordings done other than through CD downloads cannot use the CDDB, so plan on a lot of typing if you're downloading other types of media (although it will do cut and paste).

I use mine on a high end system, and the audio quality of these compressed recordings are indistinguishable from the originals. Unless you are used to listening to only studio quality sessions, the sound should be on par with any other audio component in your system.

If you normally treat your equipment with care, you shouldn't have any problems with this component. If, however, your equipment is subject to a little household roughness, you might find that one day all your music that you spent time downloading and labeling has disappeared because someone accidentally knocked into it. I would recommend keeping the original music formats stored away safely just in case.

Once all your music is downloaded, I find the best way to search for my music is by using a spreadsheet of all my albums and just punching in an album number. You can use the search function on the remote, but that will involve typing in either track, title, or artist information. Trust me it's easier to type in the album number.

If you are patient and are good at interpreting manuals, you will find this component very satisfying. It took me a while to master how to use the editing and labeling functions, but now it is a breeze.

Overall, I would say that I love this hard drive recorder. It sounds great, looks very sharp, has a slim profile (compared to those giant 200-400 CD jukeboxes), and has an impressive display when you can punch up any music at your fingertips with text display.

Although the audio does sound great, I would have liked to have seen an optical out jack on this component. The 2x download speed on CD's is nice, but 4x would have been much better.