NAK 'EM DEAD

DAT with a Difference

by Howard A. Roberson

At an international press conference in Tokyo during the second week of November, Nakamichi announced its 1000 Digital Audio Recording System, which consists of the 1000 DAT recorder and the 1000p digital audio processor that can control two recorders. A remote controller, the 1000r, available in both wired and wireless versions, is also included in the basic ensemble. Modular plug-in circuit boards make it possible to match professional levels and interfaces and to expand and update the system, which can record at 32, 44.1, and 48 kHz, including direct digital input.

The Nakamichi 1000 system includes a number of firsts. The rotary drum has four heads, allowing simultaneous monitoring during recording. Stationary tape guides are used for unprecedented tape-to-head alignment. The unique link-arm mechanism reduces start-up delay to playback. A half-load position winds tape at 400 times normal speed--twice as fast as normal DAT mechanisms. A high-precision, 20-bit D/A converter provides exceptional resolution, linearity, and dynamic range. Upper and lower bit groups are handled by separate, low-glitch, 16-bit converter ICs. The D/A converters are fully calibrated, with unmatched precision. Special ROMs carry compensation data for the specific, individual converter ICs, and bit errors are fully compensated. The unusual glitch-cancellation circuitry introduces timed, opposing pulses to cancel such problems completely.

The result is vastly improved linearity and low distortion across the entire dynamic range. The D/A conversion is brought to the theoretical limits of 20-bit performance. A demonstration was made to a select group of listeners, playing back the recordings of a previously heard concert. There had been simultaneous recording with the Nakamichi 1000 system as well as a Sony PCM-1630 processor and DMR-4000 recorder. With both recorders, some differences were noted between the amplified sound of the playback and the original live sound. I felt that the Nakamichi system delivered details and a clarity in the sound that were missing in the other playback.

Both consumer and professional versions of the Nakamichi 1000 Digital Audio Recording System are expected to be available in March. The retail prices for both versions are projected to be $10,000 for the complete system, including the remote controller. The recorder and controller together are expected to cost $5,400, the processor unit an additional $4,600, making the system's total cost $10,000. These prices are obviously very high, but so was the quality of the sound.

Direct recording at 44.1 kHz stands as a possible challenge to positions taken by the recording industry.

However, the investment required for the Nakamichi system will certainly keep consumer CD copying to a minimum, to say nothing about the cost of DAT cassettes.

-Howard A. Roberson

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Taking the Stand

The RIAA has vowed to sue the first company that brings its home DAT recorders into this country, and has committed a million dollars to the necessary legal fees. The EIA has pledged an equal amount to support whatever company gets sued-but only in the form of matching funds.

That means a company sued by the RIAA would still have to ante up half its legal fees, while no RIAA member company would be assessed any comparable amount.

In my opinion (and I'm not a lawyer), the RIAA has no hope of winning such a suit, and knows it. But they don't have to win. They're in the position of the hard-boiled hero who faces six advancing thugs with just three bullets in his gun. "Okay," the hero snarls, "I know I can only get the first three of you, and then you're gonna get me. But which of you wants to be one of those three?" If I were the lawyer for a company being sued, I'd hope the RIAA brought in as witnesses the same big guns they produced to testify in favor of the Copy-Code bill before Congress. If necessary, I'd subpoena them myself. Then I'd lead each through the following set of questions: In your opinion, does DAT pose a threat to the recording industry? On what basis have you formed this opinion? In your fight against DAT, did you not give the following testimony before Congress? Was it under oath? On what basis did you form the opinions you expressed to Congress? Is it not a fact that everything you said to Congress was later disproved in scientific tests by the Bureau of Standards? So why should we believe you now?

Crippled Play

Back when the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, they formed a musical group to raise their cultural image.

The group disbanded, however, after its first concert, a performance of Beethoven's "Choral" symphony. All went well through the first three movements, which were purely orchestral. But in the fourth, which gives the symphony its name, the group realized that two soloists had failed to show up, and the guy who sang the low part was very drunk. It was a tense moment: Bottom of the "Ninth," two out, and the bass was loaded.

Particle Progress

Under the microscope, older gamma ferric oxide particles used in recording tape show tiny pores, which reduce the magnetic energy each particle can hold. According to TDK, the particles used in their new AR-series Type I tapes are nonporous. This translates into greater magnetic energy per particle, more uniform magnetic properties, and greater particle-packing densities. As a result, low-frequency MOL is +6.5 dB at 315 Hz, the same as TDK's latest metal MA-X tape.

High-frequency MOL is -6.0 dB at 10 kHz, and bias noise is -56 dB, according to the company. In other words, if you ask TDK whether recording is better without pores, they'll answer "No sweat!" All Around Your Ears--How do you listen to surround sound through headphones? Through four-channel headphones, naturally.

During the first surround boom, back in the '70s, several companies made such models, the best of which worked more than passably well. Now, they may be making a comeback--JVC, at least, is making a pair, Model HA-SU7.

Extinguished Royalty

Controversy over home digital copying of software only reached audio four years ago or so, when Japanese manufacturers announced plans to settle on a DAT Standard. In computing, though, it dates back to the first widespread dissemination of home computers, circa 1977. Much computer software carries long copyright notices and warnings against unauthorized duplication--and so did phonograph records, once upon a time. To show how little things have changed, computer authority George Morrow recently reprinted the following notice, from an old 78-rpm record sleeve, in his column, "The Technology Show," in the September 12, 1988 issue of InfoWorld:

LICENSE NOTICE

The sound recording contained in this envelope is manufactured by us under our patents hereinafter noted, and is licensed in the U.S.A. for use only, for the term of the patent hereinafter noted having the longest term to run, and only with talking machines and sound boxes manufactured by us; and our machines and sound boxes are only licensed for use with our records. Only the right to use the said record is granted to Victor distributors and dealers for demonstrating purposes, with the right to the distributor to assign a like right to regularly licensed Victor dealers at the dealers' regular discount royalty, with the right to the dealers to convey the license to the public to use the said record only when a royalty of not less than the license royalty noted on the record itself shall have been paid, and upon consideration that all the conditions of license shall be strictly observed. A similar right is also granted to the distributor to convey to the public the right to use the record under the same conditions. No license to use this record is granted to the public until the full royalty shall have been paid. This record is not licensed for use for public entertainment for profit: For a license for such public use an extra license fee of 10 percent of the full royalty shall be payable. Title shall remain in the Victor Talking Machine Company; also the right to repossess the said patented goods upon the breach of any of the conditions upon the repayment by the Victor Company to the user of the royalty paid by him, less 10 percent per annum of the list royalty for each year, or fraction of a year, the user shall have had use thereof. This record is licensed only for the purpose of reproducing sound directly from the record, and for no other purpose. Any attempt at copying, or counterfeiting, this record will be construed as a violation of the said patent rights and conditions. All patent rights are reserved to the licensor except those hereby granted to the licensees upon the performance of the conditions noted. Any excess use, or violation of the conditions, will be an infringement of the said patents. The patents under which this record is manufactured and licensed for use are, among others, as follows: No. 739,318, issued September 22, 1903; No. 778,976, issued January 3, 1905; No. 896,059, issued August 11, 1908; and other U.S. patents under which this record is manufactured.

This record at the expiration of the patent having the longest term to run, under which it is licensed, shall become the property of the licensee (the record being then free of the patents the subject matter of the license), provided that the licensee shall have faithfully observed the conditions of the license, and the Victor Company shall not have previously taken possession of the record as herein provided.

An acceptance of this record is an acceptance of these conditions.

All rights revert to the undersigned in the event of violation.

January 1, 1915 Victor Talking Machine Company, Camden, N J

(adapted from Audio magazine, Feb. 1989; by IVAN BERGER)

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