Price Range: DAT Recorders vs DAT blank tapes

Hi everyone. I'm just curious. Why are DAT recorder decks so expensive, but the blank DAT tapes are really cheap? DAT tapes record digitally, up to 48khz and for more than 120min. on certain tapes, no bias adjusting, no tapehead adjusting, yet they are still cheaper than analog metal bias cassettes? Why?

 

A working machine may be considered rare, hence the high price. Just out of curiosity, where have you seen cheap blank DATs? I doubt I'd buy any more, but you got me wondering.

 

There on Ebay, all over. I saw a 10-pack of Maxell Professional 125min. for $35 shipped. That is cheap, considering how expensive some analog metal bias tapes are.

 

Are they?

I haven't thought about DAT in awhile.

Maybe folks are trying to recoup the cost of maintaining their decks while DAT was still relevant.

I probably paid Pro-Digital enough money over the years to buy a few new DAT machines in order to maintain the ones I was running at the time.

I have several DAT recorders stacked in a closet that no longer work properly if anyone is interested.

 

Just curious, why did those DAT recorders stop working? Why is that a common issue with DAT, yet some cassette decks and MiniDisc decks still work perfectly after all these years?

 

DAT tapes shed, and contaminate the recorder heads, the heads go out of alignment, and the many little plastic gears inside the machine wear down over time, and a bunch of other issues I might be forgetting now.

I just remember how many times I needed to service the machines when I was using them heavily...I mean, they served their purpose as far as going around and recording live shows and transferring them to CDR, but I would never consider recommending DAT as a recording medium at this stage in the game.

DAT was a nightmare...at least in my experience.

 

But don't analog cassette tape decks suffer from the same issues over time? DAT being digital is still less expensive than a premium metal bias tape.

 

DAT was a whole lot more finicky than analog.

And a lot more unforgiving, and a lot more expensive.

I'm sure someone else here can chime in with a completely different experience.

Cheers.

 

I have a DAT and some blank tapes, but it is hardly used anymore. I use my SDHC card flash recorders from Tascam. Get the new DR-22 for under $150 from Sweetwater.com and you can easily move files usb into your computer for playback or burning. It will record Cd quality, or 2496 high rez, or MP3 if that floats your boat. I keep mine for playing all of my old DAT tapes and it still sounds great as far as CD quality it concerned.

 

I used to record a lot of live set to DAT and have hundreds of 2 hour dat tapes. The only ones I had trouble with are cheap ones I was getting for a while. I’m with Jim figure out how to best suit you and record to HDD. A digital recorder is a good way or a good sound card. You could transfer files to a thumb drive and play them anywhere you want, these days.

 

Granted, I was a Grateful Dead taper, and I had DAT decks running continuously sometimes 24 hours a day, for days at a time, so maybe my usage habits for DAT were not what was considered "normal".

 

I think some models were more prone to failure than others. My 2 Sony 60ES decks died every single year like clockwork - you could set your watch to it. And it was always the same failure (couldn't FF or Rewind or would just stop playing.) My Tascam DA-302 has been a haunt since day one as well. Both the Sony and Tascam were notorious for issues. However, some freinds of mine that had other Tascam models or one of the semi-pro decks like the Panasonic never had issues. So I guess it is a case of mileage varying.

 

I was running multiple SV-3800s, and R-500s, and they were pretty much being serviced as much as they were working.

 

I agree -- a very flakey format.

 

Only one I ever had was in a car. A 1987 Cougar XR7, factory option. Sounded pretty good with the small selection of prerecorded DAT tapes I had. Got rid of the car after 3 years, the player was still working fine.

 

Interesting. My Sony DAT deck works OK*, except it automatically tries to play a tape when the power is switched on.

*That is, it worked OK several years ago when it was last used.

 

I have a Sony in the cellar which went bad simply while being stored. Never played, never touched, now it won't sync a tape. I owned a Technics at one point that had a far better transport but it was also flaky. It seems strange but the best blank tapes I bought were the computer DDS backup tapes which were DAT format--they held up well and were reliable, even the longer tapes which were 3 hrs capacity.

 

Yeah...I have 100's of those DDS tapes and they still play. I had great luck also with Kao and Maxells. There used to be a place called Cassette House that sold branded dats that were actually made by Fuji. Anyone remember Terrapin Tapes in Conneticut? Man, this thread is really bringing back memories!

 

DAT made far superior recordings compared with cassette tapes, BUT as long as you don't abuse them your cassette should still play well in 30, 40 even 50 years whereas even when the format was current you could never be sure a DAT tape would play properly, or at all, even an hour after you had recorded it, twenty or twenty five years later DAT tapes can still sound superb, however I wouldn't trust any of them as a reliable storage format.

I actually bought some sealed DAT tapes last year, they were very cheap and I guess I felt nostalgic, I brought them home and just have no inclination to use them, why would I when I have Korg and Tascam digital recorders capable of far, far superior results and much more reliable, I was so glad in the late 1990s when CD recorders came down below £1,000, I got one at the first opportunity and quickly phased the DAT machines out.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, if any of you have material on DAT or ADAT and you haven't transferred it do so now, at this minute or else it will likely be too late, they are ticking time bombs when it comes to data loss.

 

Just to add, if the OP wants to mess around with old tape formats, just buy a decent 1/4" reel to reel, proper hands on fun, potentially great results and guaranteed longevity for your recordings, other than the Ampex ones I don't worry about any of my 1/4" tapes, as long as I store them properly they will happily sit there for years with no worries about playback.

 

This is why blank DATs are inexpensive. The number of DDS tapes manufactured at the time (for computer use) must have been huge.

 

Of all the musical playback formats I have, I never saw and have never since found pre-recorded DAT tapes.

Just out of interest, which titles did you have?

Best Wishes,
David

 

had a DA-20 that went through 1 head, but i got a solid 12 years out of it.

running a Da45-HR right now that was a craigslist score for < $100. had 23 hours on the heads. sent it to paul @ prodigital and now its good to go.

i do/did a *lot* of concert taping and there's a mountain of masters here that still need to be backed up to FLAC.

flakey format indeed, but it was the best available for the task at hand.

 

Wow, DAT tapes are cheap. I spotted a guy selling 77 new Maxell DAT tapes for only $20.

 

People with a collection of DAT tapes need recorders/transports to transfer them to other formats (CD, hard drive, etc.. ). I would guess it's a small percentage of people who still record to DAT tapes anymore.

-Rob