DAT Debate! (+PT mix engine question)

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hey all,

Got into a little 'discussion' at work today and I hope you'll all be
able to help shed some light on our disagreement.

The other day my collegue came in professing that 'he loved DAT'. When
asked why he said that he had just A/B'd a mixdown between the mixer and
the returns of the DAT recorder and that the DAT sounded much nicer.

Now, after being corrected of the fact that what he was monitoring had
nothing to do with the DAT tape itself (merely the converters), he and
another guy began to claim that despite the fact that DAT audio is
digitally stored, *the fact that it is stored/retrieved through a
mechanical process has a direct affect on the sound*. I can't believe
this to be true, as digital is digital, regardless of the storage media.
I think the difference they are hearing is simply from the signal chain
and converters along the way.

Can they be right? I've been trying to think of ways it possibly could
be, and the only way I can think of is if the tape varispeeds slightly,
but I would have thought/hoped that the player would have a buffer of
some kind to keep playback speed constant. If anyone could throw some
light on this I'd appreciate it

On another related note, an example the guy gave was once he fed an
PT-HD rig the AES/EBU output from a DAT player, and monitored it through
a set of Apogee DAs. Apparently he still preferred the direct DAT signal
even though the Apogee DAs should, in theory, sound much nicer. Can
anyone direct me to the threads about the PT Mix engine sounding
unpleasant, as I reckon that much explain it.

Thanks!
Ben.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Carey Carlan wrote:

> You are correct. A disk and a tape correctly operating will create
> identical streams of bits. The ADC can't tell from the bit stream which
> source it came from.
>
> If your friend likes the converters on the DAT he is free to use them at
> any time.
>
> It takes an outstanding ear and reproduction system to discern source from
> copy on really good converters (ADC to DAC). If your friend hears a
> difference, it's likely that the converters are coloring the sound in a way
> that he likes.

Of course. I don't claim that colouration is necessarily a bad thing at
all. I just want him to understand that the tape mechanism of the DAT
machine has no effect on the sound at all. The monitoring system he was
using is not very good either, so I think there were some volume issues
at play also!

Ben.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Particle Salad wrote:
> I think what he's saying is he likes the sound of the error correction of
> the DAT recorder better than a non-error corrected digital copy.
>
> "Ben Bayliss" <usenet@drives.me.mad.benbayliss.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:418bd528$0$112$65c69314@mercury.nildram.net...
>
>>Hey all,
>>
>>Got into a little 'discussion' at work today and I hope you'll all be
>>able to help shed some light on our disagreement.
>
>
>

Nah that's definately not what he was saying. He wasn't comparing
different DATs and his point was about the mecahnical process of digital
tape affecting the sound in a way that less mechanically stored digital
audio isn't. From what everyone said here, he's just wrong and is
hearing the convertors.

After the weekend I went back and have him the answers that had been
left here, and he's been fairly quiet about it since..

That'll show him

Ben