KLUDGE@AGCB1.LARC.NASA.GOV (05/02/91)
Phase-Linear amps: The Phase-Linear beasts were NOT good in their day. They were in fact notoriously bad. The reason they sound bad in comparison with modern amplifiers is primarily related to the fact that they sounded bad in comparison with amplfiers twenty years ago. They were quite popular for PA applications because they were fairly indestructable. They still aren't all that bad for cheap PA work, and you can pick them up for a song. But don't use them for anything that you want to sound good... On DCC: Stop it. DCC, for those few of you who haven't read the articles, is an SDAT format with data compression. It does not use a rotating head, but a multitrack thin-film head (like a multitrack version of the head that disk drives use). This means that a number of very fine tracks can be placed on a cassette; not at all good for analogue recording but great for recording digital data. By using a rather ingenious compression scheme they are able to cut the bit rate by a factor of four before recording, which means that even though the total capacity of the tape is less than the DAT, it can still store as many seconds of audio. I've heard the things and they compression effects aren't obvious, but I am hedging my bets for the time being. The DAT has pretty much become the standard for 2-track digital these days and I rather suspect it will remain so. --scott