Topic: JB3 Stability...

[caymanreview]

i seriously dought it was from overheating, i ran mine in direct sunlight, on a july summer midwest day, it was at least 100+ degrees and 100% humidity... thats about as rough as it gets

[seethreepo]

just need to explain to the wife what i am doing so she doesnt go nuts when new gear suddenly shows up.

dude never explain the new gear  if she asks about the $$ just say you fixed the roof or something  

[phishn]

im just gonna tell her the truth...the jb3 a little more than half the price of the dat, active cable, i have now, and half the hassle...no media needed, and no spending hours transferring stuff.  plus..when not taping..makes a great player.  my dat just sits..never use it for anything but record and transfer.  So, what im gonna do is run it in parallel with the dat until i get comfortable with it, setting levels, etc.  Then sell the dat.

[Brian Skalinder]

My JB3 has proven 100% stable in my 100hrs or so of use (field-simulated test + actual field use) to replace DAT outright.  I've run ~60 hrs of bit-perfect tests and ~40 hrs additional recording without the bit-perfect tests.  The bit-perfect tests showed the JB3 to be 100% perfect¹ in my setup.

Anecdotal experiences I've seen referenced in a few different user forums (primarily here, Yahoo NJB3Tapers group, Oade, and a bit on Nomadness.net) seem to indicate the JB3s digital-in reliability is impacted by the signal feeding it.  So...your mileage may vary depending on the specific links in your recording chain.

If you're gonna do it, run your DAT as backup until you're comfortable with the reliability in your specific situation (else you'll kick yourself later for missing something if you run into a problem until you're personally satisfied).

FWIW, I'm running V3 > Hosa ODL-312 > JB3 and I don't run the DAT as a backup anymore.

¹ The first bunch of samples when initiating a recording are not always bit-perfect and may be related to HD spin-up time.  All subsequent samples have proven 100% bir-perfect in my ~60 hrs of testing.  I still label the JB3 as bit-perfect because this issue is repeatable and easily avoided by simply starting your recording a second or two earlier than you would otherwise.

[Lee]

Brian,

I'm wondering if you've tested it as bit-perfect coming off of pause... what I've been doing is starting the recording, letting it run for a few seconds, and hitting pause.  When I'm ready to go for the long haul, just take it off pause.  Seems to get rid of the obvious digital farts, but I've never really gotten down to the nitty-gritty and done "real" tests.

[Brian Skalinder]

I'm wondering if you've tested it as bit-perfect coming off of pause...

Nah, I haven't bothered as for me it's a moot issue either way.  I just always make sure I fire it up a few seconds earlier than usual.  I actually just started using the record > pause.......un-pause method on the JB3.  (You'd think it would be ingrained in my brain after running DAT so much.)  If I get around to running a "pause...unpause" test I'll post results, though I'm mostly done with my testing.

[Lee]

No worries... thanks for confirming what some of us have known for over a year now

+T

And to think, yall all made fun of me for selling my d8 back in january 03

[Brian Skalinder]

No worries... thanks for confirming what some of us have known for over a year now

+T

And to think, yall all made fun of me for selling my d8 back in january 03

Uhmmmm...I see the wink, but I think I'm missing it.  Time for sleep, obviously!  

[F.O.Bean]

jb3 YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY

[Todd R]

I have had a Nomad JB3 since October or November of 2002.  I have recorded about 350-400 field hours at shows in all kinds of conditions.  I have pretty much never had any problems with it, except:

1) forgetting to clear the drive and having the recording of a show get cut short due to lack of HD space

2) breaking off the mini optical cable end that goes into the jb3 (I have always feed it a digital signal)

Problem (1) is obviously user error, no fault of the JB3.  Problem (2) was a bit of an issue, as I went through half a dozen optical cable adapters.  Since I've started using right angle adapter for the optical cable and taping it down to the JB3, I've had no problems.  All in all, I think it is a very reliable unit.

BTW, I feed it an optical signal from an old Digicon DC2 scms stripper and format converter, which works great.  Not of much help to anyone else though since you'll never be able to find one of these.  Also, I still run a DAT backup, currently with an M1.  The tapes keep piling up everywhere, more often than not I never even get around to labeling them.  Still run the DAT though, don't ask me why.

-Todd

[F.O.Bean]

if my jb3 copies are up to par, id prolly give sideshow all of my backup dats

[phishn]

could problem 2 be fixed with the dremel tool  shaving fix mentioned somewhere on this board?

[F.O.Bean]

FWIW, my hosa toslink>mini that costigan gave me fits perfectly

[joemango]

get the 1.32.02 firmware!!!

[F.O.Bean]

Brian,

I'm wondering if you've tested it as bit-perfect coming off of pause... what I've been doing is starting the recording, letting it run for a few seconds, and hitting pause.  When I'm ready to go for the long haul, just take it off pause.  Seems to get rid of the obvious digital farts, but I've never really gotten down to the nitty-gritty and done "real" tests.

w/ the latest firmawre, i tried this, and its quite audible, so i wouldnt try it w/ 1.40.06

it soundz like the hiccup ya'll are talkin about