Macca's Lash Up 2: Lash Harder

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Originally Posted by Barry

Better than CD? Mechanically DAT uses tape in the same way as video tape: the tape is pulled out and uses a helical scan head to read/write, and thus suffers the same vulnerability to stretching and oxide shedding as any other magnetic tape.

I have a CD recorder and a bunch of blank CD-RW discs, but I have never used it. Perhaps I should give a try and make up CDs for the car.

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I read up a bit on DAT the other days, and apparently DAT tapes do have shedding issues and can degrade after 20 years or so, depending on storage conditions, whereas CDs have a life expectancy of about 100 years. Also it said that DAT machines often would chew up the tapes. So I would say music recorded onto CD has a better chance, though they too have a shorter life than ready-made ones.

Machine does look cool though.

Nice that you have a CD player in the car (as do we), manufacturers seemed to have ditched the format in favour of whatever you can send from your phone it seems. I don't know how I'll go on when we change the car, I have a (probably irrational) fear of "computer says no".

CD may have a life of 100 years, probably a lot more but CD-R is not the same thing, they do degrade. They can become unreadable after just a few years.

Yes I read that too in the same article. But blank CDs are way cheaper than DAT tapes.

I think I paid about £8 for 5 blank DAT tapes, that was maybe ten years ago or so. Sure they are not that much more now.

The cheapest (and the only) DAT tape I found on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EMTEC-DAT-M...=G4M97HJYm4FgJ

Lots for sale on Ebay, starting at around 6 quid each.

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Originally Posted by Macca

CD may have a life of 100 years, probably a lot more but CD-R is not the same thing, they do degrade. They can become unreadable after just a few years.

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It very much depends on the manufacturer. The best are made by Verbatim and by TDK and Maxell, but sometimes production is outsourced to RiTek and those are not considered to be so good. All however can be relied upon to last for at lest 10 years, with the best lasting at least 50 years.

I'm not sure how long DAT is expected to last; like any spooled magnetic tape there will be print-through, which will compromise sound performance with time. How this affects the digital signal recorded on them I don't know, but I imagine a "1" print-through on a "0" will slightly raise the amplitude of the latter, and a "0" print-through on a "1" will slightly lower the amplitude. Does any of that matter?

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Originally Posted by Barry

It very much depends on the manufacturer. The best are made by Verbatim and by TDK and Maxell, but sometimes production is outsourced to RiTek and those are not considered to be so good. All however can be relied upon to last for at lest 10 years, with the best lasting at least 50 years.

I'm not sure how long DAT is expected to last; like any spooled magnetic tape there will be print-through, which will compromise sound performance with time. How this affects the digital signal recorded on them I don't know, but I imagine a "1" print-through on a "0" will slightly raise the amplitude of the latter, and a "0" print-through on a "1" will slightly lower the amplitude. Does any of that matter?

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I suppose if degradation gets to the point where it can't error correct? But I really don't know much about how DAT works or if it has error correction and redundancy like a CD does.