The Alesis MasterLink ML-9600 is a two track hard disk recorder designed for a variety of purposes. The studio I work at has one of these in one of our smaller rooms for printing final mixes to CD for the most part. The MasterLink ML-9600 will take up two spaces in a traditional rack casing and consists of connections for both analog and digital inputs and outputs, and has both XLR and RCA jacks for each. The front panel has a good amount going on, as there's a ton you can do with the ML-9600 that I haven't delved into yet, including on board signal processing. You can burn CD's with this at either standard 44.1 kHz/16 bit, or at higher resolutions up to 96 kHz, 24 bit. It's a great mastering tool as you can even do fade in and outs as well as other trimming and cutting for mastering purposes. The signal processing it has on board includes compression, limiting, equalization and normalization. You can also save playlists and store up to 30 hours of stereo tracks right on the internal drive. Basically the Alesis MasterLink ML-9600 is just about the most up to date CD recorder you'll find, combing older methods with the newest technology available. While most home studio owners probably won't have a need for the ML-9600, in professional studios like the one I work it, it can be very useful for getting mixes ready for mastering and beyond. They're no longer making the ML-9600, so I'm not sure exactly what kind of price these command on the used market or how it compares to a newer model if there is one. However, the Alesis MasterLink ML-9600 is a very powerful CD recorder and is one you should know about if you're in the market for something like this.