RECORD-ABILITIES
Get 'em Before They're Hot
While Congress makes up its mind about the future U.S. status of home digital recorders, at present they're perfectly legal-and what's more, they're more or less (though mainly less) available.
There are currently two types of digital media: R-DAT and video-based systems. If you have a VCR, you can get an EIAJ-Standard PCM converter that will allow the VCR to record digital sound in either a 14- or 16-bit format, though without any accompanying video. Toshiba's new DX-900 VCR has such a converter built in, for the 14-bit EIAJ format only. Some 8-mm VCRs record PCM audio along with their video, but 8-mm PCM uses only 8 bits (with analog compression) and a sampling rate of only 32 kHz, which seriously limits the fidelity.
A few U.S. dealers have begun importing R-DAT tapes and recorders on their own. So far, I've seen ads from Audio Gallery in Santa Monica, Cal. and Sterling International in Princeton, N.J. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of more.
Eventually, CD player/recorders will come out of the labs and into the stores, to compete with DAT recorders. Assuming equal recording quality, how will the two compare? Part of this comparison is time-dependent. If both CD and DAT recorders were available today, CD would have a clear edge in compatibility with existing hardware. If you could buy a CD recorder now, you'd have no problem finding car and portable players for the discs you made. If you bought a DAT recorder, you'd have nowhere else to play your tapes (as yet). However, DAT is getting to the market first. It's been on sale almost a year in Japan, should be available in Europe when you read this, and may even make it into the U.S. if Congress doesn't hamstring it.
If DAT has a long enough lead time before recordable CD arrives, and if it drops in price enough to become popular, much of CD's market edge would disappear.
When it comes to durability, each medium can withstand some kinds of abuse better than the other. The DAT shell, with its automatic lid, protects the tape against dirt and dust and against fingerprints on the recorded surface. But DATs will eventually wear out with normal play, while CDs won't.
(So far, no one knows how many plays a specific tape will withstand without signal deterioration; judging from the kind of progress made in videocassettes, which use similar rotating-head technology, R-DAT cassettes should be good for at least 100 plays and possibly well over 300.) As to convenience, the R-DAT fits most pockets better than the CD does, and the R-DAT box is definitely easier to open, especially with one hand. The Compact Disc offers faster track-to-track access, but for music applications I don't think that's quite as important. (Interactive CD systems will be another story.) All in all, as far as convenience goes, chalk one up for DAT.
Something to Flip Over
Pull a component out of your stereo system, and lean over the top to look at the connections on its back panel.
What do you see? A bunch of jacks, each labeled (from your viewpoint) upside down. I've always taken that for granted (cursing it all the while), but now I wonder why I accepted it so meekly. A rear view of the British-made Audio Development AD 062 mixer, in the Italian magazine Audio Review, showed its designations (even the company logo!) upside down-or right side up, to those bending over it. Now that's a professional feature I'd like to see on home hi-fi! On the other hand, there are those whose systems can be pulled out from the wall, allowing the rear panels to be viewed normally. Perhaps jack designations should be printed both right side up and upside down, to cover both possibilities. Or would it be simpler to print them sideways? That way, no one would have to reorient himself more than 90° to read which jack is which.
(Editor's Note: And why isn't the back panel sloped at 45°, with a top shorter than the bottom? Or you could even have the jack field arranged vertically; the usual on-the-back array is like trying to look into one's navel.-E.P.)
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Historic Circles
A year or so ago, General Electric purchased RCA. That had a nice, historic ring to it, since RCA had begun as something of a spin-off from GE, and since GE's early-Deco New York office building, decorated with lightning bolts and other symbols of electronics, originally was RCA's.
The recent sale of the GE/RCA consumer electronics business to Thomson SA of France has an historical angle too. Back in the 1950s, GE was a major name in component high fidelity, making preamps, cartridges and tonearms.
Though GE itself is not getting back into that business, one of its stable mates in the Thomson empire, Dual, has been in it for years. And another stable mate, Telefunken, was one of the pioneers in early tape recording.
(adapted from Audio magazine, 1987)
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