[Ardour-Users] Experience? Rework an external 44.1 KHz 16 bit recording

[Lamar Owen]

On Thursday, August 19, 2010 12:18:19 pm Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> Is 'lossy' just the wrong word? I 'guess' I did hear loss when doing a
> copy from DAT to DAT, using an audio cable, but a 75 ohm cable. I read
> about this as a common issue for optical waveguide in the audiophile
> mags at my dentist :D, but they do write a lot of nonsense.

Nonsense of the day: http://www.malcolmsteward.co.uk/?p=2479

Worth a quick skimming, then toss.

> I always
> wondered why there seems to be loss when doing the S/PDIF copy from DAT
> to DAT, but at the same time DAT also is used to backup computer data. I
> guess for the computer it's not called DAT, but they use the same tapes
> and mechanics.

In the computer world it's DDS.  The drive mechanics are the same for DDS-1 and Audio DAT, but there does appear to be some electronic differences.  You can even get DDS drives, that connect by SCSI, with special firmware that can 'rip' DAT's straight to WAV.  This was originally commissioned by SGI; I have an SGI DAT drive with the appropriate firmware, and the program that came with IRIX that allowed digital dumping of the DAT to WAV, and have actually made it work before on one of my O2's and an Indigo2/IMPACT.

For more information about Audio DAT in DDS drives, please see the following websites:
http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/datfaq.htm
http://www.big-bubbles.talktalk.net/personal/ade/dat-dds/drives.html
http://www.zianet.com/jgray/dat/index.html
http://www.trygve.com/playaudiodat.html
http://www.hoxnet.com/dat-tools/index_old.html1

Having said all that, my Panasonic SV3700 doesn't get much workout these days; the SV3200 gets a little bit, but only playback now, and only through S/PDIF (tidbit: I had a mixed mode DAT the other day (some cuts at 44.1K and some at 48K) and was dumping it in via S/PDIF through a Tascam US-144 on OS X; JACK was set at 48K.  The 44.1K cuts came in at 48K, and I had to sample convert (not resample) them to get the pitch right....