[comp.music] DAT recommendations

grae@murdu.oz (Graeme Gerrard) (11/13/89)

I am looking for recommendations from DAT owners/users.
Priorities are:
1. must be portable,
2. digital ports preferred.
I know about the Sony PCM 2000, but it is rather expensive
here in Australia. Is there anything similar? Anything
to steer clear of?
There seems to be some controversy, in some circles, about the
quality of DAT recordings. Can anyone with PRACTICAL experience
please comment?


Thanks for any help,
Graeme Gerrard
Faculty of Music
University of Melbourne, Parkville 3052
Internet: grae@murdu.ucs.unimelb.edu.au

LASSFOLK@cc.helsinki.fi (Kai Lassfolk) (11/14/89)

In article <1760@murdu.oz>, grae@murdu.oz (Graeme Gerrard) writes:
> I am looking for recommendations from DAT owners/users.
> Priorities are:
> 1. must be portable,
> 2. digital ports preferred.
> I know about the Sony PCM 2000, but it is rather expensive
> here in Australia. Is there anything similar? Anything
> to steer clear of?
> There seems to be some controversy, in some circles, about the
> quality of DAT recordings. Can anyone with PRACTICAL experience
> please comment?
>

Check out the Sony TCD-D10 PRO. It's a modified TCD-D10 with SPDIF and
AES/EBU I/O. The price (here in Finland) is about half of the
PCM-2000's.

There are also the DA-1 and DA-2 from Casio (I own the latter).
They are cheap but have no digital ports and their sound quality isn't
perfect. They have only 15-bit ADC:s and boost high frequencies at recording
stage. In reproduction, the frequency responce is equivalized back to
normal but the result is audible noice especially with sounds that don't
contain high frequencies and if you aren't careful with the recording
levels. I also doubt the quality of their anti-aliasing filters. However,
it might be possible to modify the DA-2; change the filters, install
digital I/O, remove the treble emphasis, have 44.1kHz S/R and still
have the cheapest portable DAT on the market. I will possibly get some
information on that in a couple of weeks.

DA-2 is a newer and bigger model with better audio connectors. I don't know
if they make DA-1:s any more.

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Kai Lassfolk                      BITNET:   lassfolk@finuh.bitnet
University of Helsinki            Internet: lassfolk@cc.helsinki.fi
Department of Musicology
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