| DAT machines are available from Aiwa, Pioneer and Sony in the UK,
as well as the Marantz Andy mentioned in .1; they all sell for around
a grand, but so did the first CD machines, allowing for inflation.
Casio have a model out in Japan that's condensed the full DAT chip
set onto one massive chip, and the whole thing is about twice the
size of the average Walkperson - or the size of a Sony Pro Walkman;
not bad considering it has the sound quality of a professional studio
machine.
There is currently someone in Norfolk, whose name escapes me, who
is legally producing pre-recorded DAT tapes, using a bank of about
100 Sony machines, as no hi-speed duplicator is currently available.
Apparently Sony is taking a lot of interest in what this guy's doing,
and have supplied him with a cassette loader and all sorts of other
bits of hardware he needs, and will supply him with a duplicator
which is just about ready to hit the streets. The record/CD companies
must know about this if it's legal, yet they've kept very quiet;
this isn't surprising, considering they're still pushing for us
to buy CDs before the bottom falls out of the market.
There have been some very good reviews in HiFi Review (forget the
hype and just read the articles) and HiFi News/Record Review on DAT
machines over the last year or so. Recommended reading, especially
those in HFR as Noel Keywood doesn't pander to the mandarins at
Philips, whose CDs he regularly lambastes in spite of being a a
pro digital-audio CD user himself.
Dave
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