Topic: future of dat

[heath]

I just put in 4 matched Svetlana el34 tubes in my amp tonight

whore 

[Brian]

oh man I bet that sounds REAL nice!  I need to start sluttin' it up on the playback end.

[Tim]

they need a looong time to burn in, about 100 hours, but the change from the stock Chinese tubes was pretty noticeable right away. My Bel Canto DAC 2 showed up today too. Sara has been gone all night so I'm getting in some serious listening time tonight.

Heath - you know it!

Brian - it's unbelievable how much more rewarding the music becomes.

[fasteddy]

I heard on NPR that quantegy (sp?) might have a buyer for it's factory and they may start production again

[ice8888]

i'll have to agree with everyone else that dat is a dying format... which i think kinda sucks.  i love having a hard copy after i tape a show.  even if it's only a backup copy for the lappy i still like having it.  just my opinion.

[heath]

i'll have to agree with everyone else that dat is a dying format... which i think kinda sucks.  i love having a hard copy after i tape a show.  even if it's only a backup copy for the lappy i still like having it.  just my opinion.

completely understandable.  hard copies are ALWAYS nice. 

[wbrisette]

remember it all boils down to "how it sounds".  Analog Tape REcording is still alive because MANY engineers and producers think it sounds better. 

As 24-bit HD recording starts becoming the norm, I think even some of those engineers and producers may start to rethink their Analog "sounds" better. Analog sounds better than DAT, I won't argue that point, in fact that's why I vinyl records STILL sell better than CDs in some countries (the US is NOT one of them). However, as we start bridging that 24/48-192 sampling rates we're starting to hear things that you couldn't hear on DAT and even things that you couldn't hear on tape.

I still think it's sad that we're seeing an end to DAT, if for no other reason than portability. Once that tape is stored in it's shell, as long as you don't submerge it, or beat the hell out of it (or of course run it over a high powered magnet), you're show is preserved. As much as I LOVE my DEVA, until I put that show on DVD-RAM I don't have the security (false or otherwise) of it not going away because the hard drive crashes.

Wayne

[heath]

Once that tape is stored in it's shell, as long as you don't submerge it, or beat the hell out of it (or of course run it over a high powered magnet), you're show is preserved.

while i agree that it is sad to see dat going away, you have to keep in mind that NO tape media is to be considered "permanent".   DAT tape, just like analog tape, can suffer from sss (sticky shed syndrome) and will deteriorate over time, even in controlled storage environments.  We are actually working on a large preservation job with one of the major labels to do preservation work on their dats, and get the information off the tapes before it's too late.   

[Brian]

without a doubt, I believe that if you do a digital recording right, it will sound just as good, if not better to some ears(because of S/N ratios i suppose) than analog.  I'm certainly not an analog purest in any sense of the form.  Hell i'm only 22 years old so technically I can't be...... didn't grow up in that period However there are some things, IMHO, that will never sound as good recorded digitally as it would recorded on analog tape.  Like an entire drum kit for example.  

However, as we start bridging that 24/48-192 sampling rates we're starting to hear things that you couldn't hear on DAT and even things that you couldn't hear on tape.

Wayne

i just can't quite agree with you there.  even at 24bit/192kHz, it's still a "repesentation" of the analog signals.  if you hear anything on that digital recording that's not on the tape(using an ATR with an extended frequency response), then that is noise inherant from the digital recording as far as I'm concerned.

[heath]

Like an entire drum kit for example. 

or a bass guitar tracked at +6 @ 250nWb/m     

[Brian]

Like an entire drum kit for example.

or a bass guitar tracked at +6 @ 250nWb/m

oh yeah....just a tad of saturation

[heath]

Like an entire drum kit for example.

or a bass guitar tracked at +6 @ 250nWb/m

oh yeah....just a tad of saturation

some time you need to find an excuse to come to PGH (concert or something) and take a trip up to our facility.  i think you'd get a kick out of it.

[Tim]

Like an entire drum kit for example.

or a bass guitar tracked at +6 @ 250nWb/m

oh yeah....just a tad of saturation

some time you need to find an excuse to come to PGH (concert or something) and take a trip up to our facility. i think you'd get a kick out of it.

I know he would

[Brian]

i'd love to be able to check out the studio sometime!

excuse = internship? I need to intern with somebody in order to graduate and I am still looking around. i know we went through this before but i wasn't able to come out for the time frame you were seeking one; not too mention my resume wasn't too expansive at the time.  let me know and we can PM each other details.

[Kevin Straker]

I disagree. The dat market is driven by server backups, not by audio use. 4MM dds tapes are still cheaper than dlt tapes, i think. DDS2 tapes may get harder to find, but generally speaking the 4mm format will remain for a while (IMO).