BM> Things seems to be settling down, so I'm ready to jump into digital.
BM> I'm prepared to buy a digital 8-track recorder yesterday, but I can't
BM> decide between the TASCAM DA-88 and the Alessis ADAT.  I do professional
I think this question rates up there with 'What's the meaning of life?'  :)
But ever since the beginning I've been using the ADATs in my studio.  I've 
definitely gone through some interesting moments with them during the past 
.5
years.  I can only tell you about the DA88s from second-hand experience, 
magazine reviews, etc.
The Alesis ADAT uses the SVHS format and runs at about 3x's normal video 
speed.  Therefore, you get 40 minutes out of a 120 minute tape.  The maximum 
time you'll get on one tape is 60 minutes if you use a T-180 tape.  Because 
f
the faster tape speed, it takes a longer time to fast forward and rewind.  If 
you have the patience, then it shouldn't bother you that much.  The DA88s use 
Hi8 tapes and give you about 108 minutes of recording time on a T120 tape.  
This is useful for extended live recording or scoring films (longer than 60 
mins.).  The DA88's tape speed is slower than the ADAT's, so the 
rewind/forward time is less.  There's also a shuttle/job wheel on the remote 
controller for the DA88s -- not found on the ADATs.  This may be useful for
locating points on the tape.  There's one thing about the DA88s that may shy 
some people away...  it uses 4 stereo tape heads, similar to those found on 
TASCAM's DA-30 DAT machine, to record 8-channels of audio.  This means that 
every time you record something on track 2, the information on track one is 
being read and re-written to the tape.  You can see that there's potential 
or
data loss here, but I haven't heard of any tragedies *yet*.  Another useful 
feature of the DA88 is the recording frequency selector button -- 44.1kHz or 
48kHz.  The ADATs normally record at 48kHz, but you can vary it from about 
39kHz to 50kHz -- it's almost impossible to know what frequency you're at in 
--- PCBoard (R) v15.22/25 (08-11-95 17:
---------------