I still have two working Tascam DA series machines, they still come in handy for the occasional transfer, back when I was doing DAT tape transfers and edits I don't think there was anything they didn't play whether the master had been recorded on a Casio, Aiwa, Sony, Tascam, Pioneer, Panasonic, Fostex any machine and any tape, HHB, Maxell, TDK, Sony, even HP data tapes, if only the tapes had stood up as well as those Tascams, even back in the day it was obvious there were issues and long term DAT masters were not safe.
DAT was noticeably better than compact cassette, but I have to admit that when faced with recording onto a £6 DAT tape or a £1 SA90 or XLII 90 with Dolby S which was great, I tended to choose the cheaper option and those cassettes haven't failed and still sound pretty good so absolutely no regrets in usually choosing cassette over DAT.
Dolby S brought analog cassette into parity with DAT, at least on high-end analog 3-head decks. You'd be challenged to tell the difference in an A/B test, at least with some material. And the cassette deck would still be cheaper, produce compatible tapes, and the tapes themselves were a fraction of the cost. For 99% of consumers, they were more than good enough. Of course, by this point consumers had started to abandon tape for portable CD players and MiniDisc, and soon thereafter recordable CDs and then MP3...
You are correct. My memory failed-me on that point. I personally stayed away from DCC, simple because it was a format which featured lossy compression. And I had zero interest in either DCC or MD due to that fact. But you are correct DAT was fussy as hell. But I must say that the Denon DAT recorder I owned sounded really good, up until the time at which it stopped working.
As per: The Vinyl Factory Limited The 8 best tape decks for home listening 8. Akai DX-57 7. Denon DR-M24HX 6. Denon DRS-810 5. JVC TD-V662 4. Pioneer CT-S740S 3. Sony TC-K611S 2. Yamaha KX-300 1. Nakamichi BX-125E
Nice post. My experience with Dolby C, metal tape and HX Pro from top quality Sony TC-K950ES was/is great but does not easily rival DAT, not even close. DAT beats 1/4 inch 15 ips reel-to-reel too. I've had 6 DAT Recorders, 3 pro and 3 consumer units, plus a Sony D8 portable recorder with SBM unit. All of those were/are used for business. The format is lousy for the sort of recording/play compact cassettes are ideally used for, like recording a playlist of songs from LP to play on a portable battery powered cassette unit at the beach or in a car player. In fact, I believe the only vehicle that could be purchased with a factory DAT Player was a Lincoln. Those did not work well in damp or winter environments. At any rate, it was mp3 and software to email mp3's which brought about the end of DAT, as well as compact cassettes, LP, and CD to some extent, even though it did not actually sound very good initially.
Is that particular Sony all that well-regarded? It looked fantastic and had cool features, but I recall reading even older Naks blew it away from a performance standpoint. Of course, we're really talking about audiophile users here. That's a very limited market. Most people DGAF about minor differences in audio quality - they wouldn't be buying a three head analog tape deck or a DAT deck unless it was available for under $200. And without a mass audience a format like DAT is flat out doomed.
I never read anything about any cassette deck blowing away the Sony TC-K950ES. At that level I believe TOTL decks from any would deliver awesome results, making the concept of which is best a coin toss. I later had other top ES models but sold them all, since none delivered more and all were inferior. At any rate, my 950 was mothballed for close to 20 years. I put it back into service about a year ago after replacing a belt, a cap, and a roller. I only have a few Maxell UD XLIIs left but seems the unit still performs magnificently with those, as well as with URs. And, regarding DAT, in hind sight we can see why it was doomed, but, for a few years, the memory start/jog Time-Code models rocked the audio recording world and nobody knew of anything that was coming to change that. It's all good fun.
I've never heard the 950, but when I got my TC-KA6ES it was so good that I lost any real desire to get anything more including high end Naks, I'd love to find another one as I'm a bit precious of it and tend to use good, but lesser machines when I have bouts of doing transfers as I don't want to wear it out whereas if I had two it's all I'd use.
Dub, You're a man after my own heart. Either that or we are both OCD. I do know exactly how you see it. There's not much that is going to wear out though, more like, deteriorate. Good news is the stuff that essentially disintegrates can be replaced: belts, caps, and rollers. I run my unit at least an hour monthly, since an idle tape recorder is a rusting tape recorder. Exercise it, take it for a walk. BTW, your unit and mine are very similar.
No, the PCM-7000 Series was 1992-2007 or thereabouts. PCM-7010, 7030, 7050, and 7040. The 7030/50 were used in a pair for 1 frame digital editing accuracy from the RM-D7300 Digital Audio Editor. The PCM-7010 was used in pairs for 3 frame digital editing accuracy from the RM-D7200 Dual Remote Control. The 7040 replaced 7010, 7030 and 7050. The 7010 was less money even with all options, since it did not do chase synchronization, just generated time-code if optioned for it. About 5-6 years ago these units were coming out of service and could be purchased for a few hundred bucks. I saw a 7040 with less than 200 hrs for just $300. That model sold for $10,000. At any rate, these were the most capable DAT Recorders ever produced. That's not baloney. To, realize all capability required training or prior experience with this sort of equipment. I know if I abandon my PCM-7010's for more than a few weeks I'll need to get out the manual to do 2 recorder editing.
My friend had one of these and we used to listen to it constantly. I had a Harmon Kardon with sendust heads and I bought a dbx noise reduction unit. That outboard unit from dbx dropped all hiss down a black hole. I haven't seen those advertised for years but they're the cat's meow for killing tape noise.
DAT machines haven't been made for years. The point of DAT was to bring hometaping into the digital age, back in the 1980s when just a few years before the first digital consumer format for prerecorded music (CD) was introduced. Its original sampling rates were 16/44 and 16/48, so equivalent with CD or slightly better. The storage was a tape cassette that looked similar to Video8 camcorder cassettes, and has the same mechanical problems as any videotape format. Once every consumer PC had a soundcard, a large hard drive, and a CD burner, DAT became completely obsolete because any PC could do the same thing at the same quality, but cheaper and more reliably. Today there is no reason to aquire a DAT machine, except nostalgia or the need to play existing DAT recordings for transfer to a modern storage format.
Just got my ZX-7 back from B&W, UK (who were formerly an official service point for these decks). Full service, caps replaced, new rubber, transport rebuilt. Good fun for another bunch of years, I reckon. Still have a couple of Tandbergs, a Pro Walkman and others. All in use.
Just at the edge of frame... I think I have just under 200 pre-recorded. A few hundred blanks for messing about and making mixtapes. Wife and younger daughter both requested Walkmans this year as they're not keen on streaming (son and elder daughter are though). Finding loads of new music and 'sounds' on sites like Bandcamp. Lots of limited release tapes - some average, some outstanding both in terms of content and sound. It's like a small Club of the Curious. Fun. Shelf about half full of pre-recorded (I double them up): Another deck I love:
Like many, I take cassettes (and all formats) as they come. I don't expect them to do things they can't! That said, sometimes you can get very pleasant surprises. Also had this one serviced and circuits pre-emptively updated by engineer Debbie Bilham this past summer. She's Deb64 on Tapeheads and does brilliant work:
