View Full Version : DAT Wipes Out CD...!!!
Haselsh1
08-06-2015, 06:34
Does anyone remember this bloody ridiculous piece of journalism from the mid eighties...? I cannot remember what magazine it was on the front of but it was so bloody stupid at the time and even now.
Anthony K
08-06-2015, 07:24
Cannot remember the mag....it was ridiculous to an extent but DAT sounded far superior
Haselsh1
08-06-2015, 07:28
Cannot remember the mag....it was ridiculous to an extent but DAT sounded far superior
I agree with you on that one as I had a Tascam DAT machine at one point and it sounded sublime compared to CD but I still couldn't stand all of that winding and re-winding.
Audio Al
08-06-2015, 07:31
Tape does sound better ;)
I have a Sony DAT machine but no tapes to play on it. I bought some blanks to record on but couldn't get it to record even though it all lights up and the meters show levels changing but play back the tape nothing on it.
I don't recall the magazine headline so probably not one of the one's I used to read. DAT has slightly more bandwith than CD so I guess it *could* sound better.
Haselsh1
08-06-2015, 07:51
I agree with you on that one as I had a Tascam DAT machine at one point and it sounded sublime compared to CD but I still couldn't stand all of that winding and re-winding.
Of course it was very possible that my Tascam was of higher quality than my Meridian 200/205 :rolleyes:
I think that folded before DAT arrived. Domestically, anyway.
It sounds like a WTF headline, or possibly Hi-Fi Choice. HFN & RR was way too staid back then and it wasn't HFW.
Yeah, I have a vague recollection of that being a front page of WTF. I'm pretty certain that was it.
Pioneer did make a very lovely portable DAT machine which I now forget the model of, which could record up to 24/96, but I think the headline came well before that was released.
SteveTheShadow
08-06-2015, 17:42
It was Hi-Fi Review - Christ Frankland's magazine IIRC; a Noel Keywood piece I think.
DAT tapes were used a lot for computer backups where it was reckoned to stand for Dies After Two years. The heads would frequently misalign and you'd find that you couldn't read your painstakingly taken backups. It's probably a good job they didn't take off as a consumer technology - the support costs would have bankrupted some of the manufacturers.
Alan
PaulStewart
10-06-2015, 09:06
I have a Sony DAT machine but no tapes to play on it. I bought some blanks to record on but couldn't get it to record even though it all lights up and the meters show levels changing but play back the tape nothing on it.
I don't recall the magazine headline so probably not one of the one's I used to read. DAT has slightly more bandwith than CD so I guess it *could* sound better.
Martin, some of the Sony DATs were capable of recording 44.1kHz, in Europe the rcord companies objected as they could be used to clone a production master of a CD bypassing the Serial Copy Management System. So they were sent out set to be unable to record if set to 44.1. Is yours set to 48kHz? If not find the selector that enables that and try recording again. The crazy thing was that Sony's pro agents HHB, could and would remove the two internal jumpers to enable native 44.1 for any pro user We had one in parallel to the Studer :reel:_:reel: and that gave us a pre coded CD master. It might be worth a play if you have not already. I have not used it for years but mine records both.
Thanks for the tip, Paul. I have no idea what it is set to but I'll take a look tonight.
That could well be the problem. I'd like to get it working even if it is obsolete. I always wanted one back in the day.
Audio Advent
13-06-2015, 13:46
Of course it was very possible that my Tascam was of higher quality than my Meridian 200/205 :rolleyes:
*said in best nerd/pedant voice*
If you're plugging the digital out of the 200 transport into the input of the 205 monoblock then the Tascam will sound much better! snort snort.
Audio Advent
13-06-2015, 13:50
DAT tapes were used a lot for computer backups where it was reckoned to stand for Dies After Two years. The heads would frequently misalign and you'd find that you couldn't read your painstakingly taken backups. It's probably a good job they didn't take off as a consumer technology - the support costs would have bankrupted some of the manufacturers.
Alan
From what I remember, the DDS tapes made for computer back up were longer lasting and better quality than DAT tapes... yet cheaper! Might have to make a hole or break a tab or something for it to be recognised in one or the other. I remember looking into it once and there was only one DDS drive which had the capability with effort of reading audio off DAT tapes and that was a Tandberg DDS drive.
Audio Advent
13-06-2015, 14:01
you'd find that you couldn't read your painstakingly taken backups.
Automated and easily done backups surely? I don't think the headalignment was much of an issue with backups - those multi DDS industrial backup drives were pretty reliable for the average lifetime of any industry backup system. The industrial IT business simply wouldn't have used them if reliablity was such a problem and DDS was the storage medium of choice for many many years. Tape data loss was easily sorted out with checksums etc.
Audio back-ups to DAT on the other hand... that's a different matter! Drop-outs and damage to the tape was common place with no checksum etc to recover that lost data for audio.
Haselsh1
13-06-2015, 14:04
*said in best nerd/pedant voice*
If you're plugging the digital out of the 200 transport into the input of the 205 monoblock then the Tascam will sound much better! snort snort.
LOL... yeah, it was a 200/203 wasn't it...? Its been a while LOL
MY DAT player seems to have no option for selecting the recording frequency. unless it is an internal setting.
PaulStewart
13-06-2015, 15:31
MY DAT player seems to have no option for selecting the recording frequency. unless it is an internal setting.
Martin, are you trying to record in the digital domain? In which case from CD it won't work as the SCMS. plus the fact you are trying to record a 44.1 sream at 48kHz will put the total kibosh on it. IIRC it was a pair of internal jumpers had to be moved on some Sony models I just got HHB to sort mine.
I was recording from CD but via the analogue outputs.
I'll have to give it another go.
It was Hi-Fi Review - Christ Frankland's magazine IIRC; a Noel Keywood piece I think.
Yes it was. In common with a couple of other Mags they imported a dat machine from Tokyo before they were released here. Keywood, a keen cassette user, was wetting himself with excitement. Frankland just hated CD. Looking back, it was a very strange magazine. A real period piece.
From what I remember, the DDS tapes made for computer back up were longer lasting and better quality than DAT tapes... yet cheaper! Might have to make a hole or break a tab or something for it to be recognised in one or the other. I remember looking into it once and there was only one DDS drive which had the capability with effort of reading audio off DAT tapes and that was a Tandberg DDS drive.
Yep -DDS was much more robust but there was a period where standard DAT was used - certainly at a couple of places I worked - with predictable consequences.
icehockeyboy
05-07-2015, 09:43
DAT was the work of the devil!
In the early days of Take That, the radio station that I worked on booked the boys a number of times, and on one occasion that they worked for us, I was 'tech opping' and the horrible bloody DAT skipped forward a song causing a lot of panic I can tell you!
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