bill@bilver.UUCP (Bill Vermillion) (07/06/90)
First a clarification of something I wrote yesterday in the
quasi-review of the ES75 Dat deck from Sony.
Chandra (I don't know the full name) questioned me about the Meyer
speakers in that I said the stereo imaging had pin-point localization
and that the mono sounded wide.
He felt that was a contradiction.
These speakers are the most amazing small speakers I have heard. They
are not like anything else I have heard (but I don't go listen to lots
of other speakers as a pastime.).
They revealed things in the discs that were not normally heard. When
I said the mono was wide, perhaps I should have said deep.
The mono source had no localization, but the sound seemed to be
between and beyond the speakers. Not as if from a pin-point, but more
as if from a large sphere radiating in mid air. It was very nice
mono. Andy fell in love with these the first time he heard them, and
ordered a pair. You have to be convinced to pay $4000 for a pair of
oversized bookshelf speakers.
On the ES75 itself, I realize that there are a couple of features that
are very interesting. The Panasonic didn't have them, and these are
the only 2 DATs I am familiar with.
Both decks have auto program renumber, and auto start id. The Sony
didn't have a button to go directly to end mark (neccesary to ensure
that code is written from end to end on the tape with no interuptions)
but does have a sequence to do this.
The Sony has a "margin" indicator, that is a 2 digit with 1 decimal
place display - eg 3.5 or 7.5. (I have only seen the .5 display so
I suspect this is it's resolution, not .3 or some other numbers).
This display is continually updated to show the amount of margin
before zero level, which you NEVER want to exceed in the digital
domain. It is set in db of headroom left. If you ever see 0.0 you
know that you have at least used up all headroom and possible exceeded
that.
That was a much better indicator than the displays on either the
Panasonic or the Sony themselves. I showed this to Andy, and he had
been overloading the Panasonic unknowingly with music peaks.
The nice touch in the Sony is the way they have implemented the start,
skip and end id's. You can re-write any of these, and you can on the
Panasonic.
But on the Sony when you wish to re-write an id, this example shall
use start, you press the button where you wish it to be.
The deck will then play, rewind, and start where you pushed the
button, and do this up to 16 times in a row. You can then use the
arrow keys (normally associated with AMS) to fine tune the position of
the marks in .3 second increments. If you are totally off mark you
erase the one there, and start again, as there is about a 2 second
window to move the marks.
There is an autofade, and it defaults to 5 seconds. You can
re-program that to be shorter or longer. The re-programming gets
reset when you poweroff the deck.
Sony also introduces a syncro-start that works in conjunction with
Sony CD players. In the synchro start mode, you set the DAT and your
CD to the cut to be dubbed. Then you start the synchro mode, and the
DAT starts up, and a moment later the CD starts.
Hope this might clear up any confusion from the eariler post.
bill
--
Bill Vermillion - UUCP: uunet!tarpit!bilver!bill
: bill@bilver.UUCP