Topic: DAT or JB3? Whats your 2 cents?

[Kindguy]

I use the JB3 & love it.

I also just bought a nice used d7 for backup/patching & those festival low battery times.

You can charge the JB3 in your car off a cig lighter adapter. I bought one with a tape adapter (so you can play the JB3 in your car, nice for long drives home from shows) at Walmart for 16 bucks.

Battery power shouldn't be an issue. Search ebay regularly & you can pick up new JB3 batt's for 30 to 35 bucks shipped.

[Nick in Edinboro]

Can you just grab any AC adapter, or do you have to worry about it's funky ~5.9v requirements.. or is that common?  I'm so ignorant when it comes to electricity.

I bought a dongle for my car deck so that it has RCA in's now  Gonna be nice ot hear the show as I drive home from it..

[Kindguy]

The one I got is made by Phillips. It has switches to change the voltage. Has like 10 settings on it.

[joemango]

The NJB3 will only accept up to 5 volts DC.  any more than that and it won't operate at all.  A sony 6v yellow plug will fit, but the voltage is the key, so don't bother with a sony adapter unless you are just cutting the plug off to make a DIY adapter.  I haven't tried to do a battery setup, I've just relied on my 2 internnal batteries so far.  

One of the problems with using external power is that it charges the battery as it operates, and there is a problem with the unit that makes it lock up when the charging cycle is complete, requiring a reboot of the device.  So needless to say, I haven't tried external battery power.

I would suggest a 12v SLA and the auto adapter if you really need more than 5 hrs continuous recording.  Otherwise, order extra internal batteries and charge them before the show.  Don't forget you can charge 2 at a time.

[Just Taper Mark from NC]

the reason I'm sticking with dat is for the sole purpose of having a master after the fact,what happens after you've cleared your hd or jb3 and your discs get scratched or lost,what do you do?

[Nick Culbreth]

i'll throw my .02 in here and expland on what i was saying in the other thread.  if i didn't use my d100's internal a/d for stealthing and could find a reliable coax/aes > optical converter i would definately sell off my dat.  i've only had one real problem with my dat (misloaded tape at wsp lexington) but there are a lot of extra complications with dats which i would love to do without (misloads, real time conversion, media costs, expensive repairs, etc).  the actual dat tapes are nice to have as archives but i keep master shn copies archived on cd as well so they really aren't necessary in my situation.  also i don't listen to my dats, but that'll probably change when i start putting some money into my playback rig.

right now i'm sticking with dat until i can find a replacement with a similar/better internal a/d but if you're going to be running a digital signal in and have a reliable way of converting to an optical signal i don't think you can go wrong with the jb3.

[blguillen]

the reason I'm sticking with dat is for the sole purpose of having a master after the fact,

i was thinkin about running mics > ps 2 > ad20 > 7 pin > d8
and/or at the same time

ad20 > optical out > jb3  

is that doable?  or am i just thinkin out loud?  I've been looking at buying a jb3 as a backup to the dat...

[Kindguy]

the reason I'm sticking with dat is for the sole purpose of having a master after the fact,

i was thinkin about running mics > ps 2 > ad20 > 7 pin > d8
and/or at the same time

ad20 > optical out > jb3  

is that doable?  or am i just thinkin out loud?  I've been looking at buying a jb3 as a backup to the dat...

All day long with the Sony Active Optical 7 pin.

[chuckcage]

ad20 > optical out > jb3  

is that doable?  or am i just thinkin out loud?  I've been looking at buying a jb3 as a backup to the dat...

This is exactly what I run (AD-20 > optical out > NJB3) and it works wonderfully.

Chuck

[zowie]

the reason I'm sticking with dat is for the sole purpose of having a master after the fact,what happens after you've cleared your hd or jb3 and your discs get scratched or lost,what do you do?

What happens if your tape gets lost or damaged?  At least its a lot faster and easier to make a duplicate master with the NJB.

[chase]

the reason I'm sticking with dat is for the sole purpose of having a master after the fact,what happens after you've cleared your hd or jb3 and your discs get scratched or lost,what do you do?

What happens if your tape gets lost or damaged?  At least its a lot faster and easier to make a duplicate master with the NJB.

this doesn't make sense to me.  cdr's are so cheap you could make 3-4 backup copies in shn/flac for the price of a dat tape.  this would actually make  more sense than a dat because you could feasibly have backup copies in different locations in case of theft/fire/etc, if indeed you are that worried about archiving.


i originally bought the JB3 when it first came out in june 02 for ~$400 and at the time it had so many issues i returned it and bought a d8 instead.  if you are just building a rig and thinking of going down the ua-5/ad-20 route then the JB3 is the perfect choice now that all the problems are worked out.  also, fwiw i ran the JB3 line-in off of a board a few times and the A>D isn't all that bad, but not great by any means.

[BCostigan]

I have many of the same issues as others making a switch to something like the JB3.  I have a D7 that I bought very lightly used over 2 years ago.  I have had one tape misload on me and that's the only trouble I've had with it.  If it ain't broke....well....

I guess I hesitate only for fear of the unknown and it's inability to accept a coax signal without the use of some other device.  If there were a device like the CO2 that was rock solid I may be more inclined.

This may be a stretch and a bit prejudiced but I'm guessing most JB3 users are younger...say....under 25 (more accepting of new gadgets) and those of us not ready to give up our master tapes are about 25+. (getting old...don't like change)

I know I'm still getting used to live music being on CDs and not the old trusty analog cassettes.

[Just Taper Mark from NC]

this doesn't make sense to me.  cdr's are so cheap you could make 3-4 backup copies in shn/flac for the price of a dat tape.  this would actually make  more sense than a dat because you could feasibly have backup copies in different locations in case of theft/fire/etc, if indeed you are that worried about archiving.


i originally bought the JB3 when it first came out in june 02 for ~$400 and at the time it had so many issues i returned it and bought a d8 instead.  if you are just building a rig and thinking of going down the ua-5/ad-20 route then the JB3 is the perfect choice now that all the problems are worked out.  also, fwiw i ran the JB3 line-in off of a board a few times and the A>D isn't all that bad, but not great by any means.

I have the shn's of the fall downloads(feb. phish)my 1st disc for 2/15 got scratched in my car so I went to get the shn out of storage and burn a new disc but it wouldn't convert the file,all the other discs will work but not this one.so now I have a shn disc that's no good and i'm missing an audio disc because of it now.
if I burn off 3-4 disc of shn'd like you suggest and then put them in different places then I have to worry about where they're at,if they're being abuse,lost,whatever.it does'nt make sense at all to me to do that.so not to beat a dead horse or get a flame war going just call me old skool.

and to tell the truth,the day I have no options in my recording media will probably be the day I quit taping.

[chase]

fair enough, to each his own

btw, i can hook you up with that disc if you want, i have all the livephish downloads, minus philly and boston of the most recent tour.  shoot me a PM or email.

[chuckcage]

Unless someone can really prove that burned backups are less safe than DAT backups, I don't see how there's really any difference between a D8 and an NJB3 in terms of backup.  

That doesn't mean that I don't respect everyone's personal preferences for backup -- just saying that that's the only difference.

Certainly from what I can tell the biggest drawbacks to the NJB3 are its lack of coax input and battery/power issues.  The D8s issues seem to be tape cost and wear concerns.  Both units suffer from minor (and well known) reliability issues, and both are respected (at least here from what I can tell) as great equipment.

Chuck