I laugh about my brothers using MD and ripping MP3s onto it. MP3 is great because it is
free. That's it!
I have done semi-professional music recording in the past, and I think I can call myself a High Fidelity fan. For me the only other high-quality medium than CD is DAT:
Digital Audio Tape
Now some of you may never have heard about it, because DAT players and recorders are very expensive. Sony developed them in '88 and wanted to use DAT as a replacement for our obsolete but still widespreadly used compact cassette.
What destroyed DAT (or made it financially unaffordable for the avarage music listener) was the record industry's effort to eliminate pirated copies. Why? Because DAT is a system that does NOT use any data compression. It records in three (except for one Pioneer recorder:4) sampling frequencies: 32Hz, 44.1 (which CDs use) and 48Hz. You were able to make copies of over 100 generations and have NO loss of quality.
So the record industry introduced SCMS - the serial copy management system. It only allows you to make one digital (and no-quality loss) copy. This copy cannot be copied digitally again, and you can only make analogue copies, therefore losing quality. This copy can be copied digitally again ... etc.
Professional decks and recorders (like Sony or Tascam) have a switchable SCMS button/switch. Very pricy and only affordable for recording studios. So DAT was only used by pros and freaks like me.
Now, that CD recordables have hit the market, I'll laugh about all this. Politics of the audio and record industry have destroyed a good system, which cannot be replaced with crappy MP3 players.
DAT tapes are also more difficult to find, but one advantage is that computer dats can be used for audio use. As I tell my younger brothers (and I
love telling them) that with DAT I can record up to six hours in the long-play mode at 32Hz.
What's next? Can't wait to see when DVD recorders and potential pirated copies are going to hit the market!
