Hi
i am wondering if is good idea to buy a D.A.T player/recorder

is a good system ? still in production ?
the tapes are still availables ?

thanks
Manuel

I have 2 DAT machines, a Tascam DA-20 MkII and a Sony D7. Both have done me well, but DAT does suffer from 'digi-noise' - dropouts - on tapes when they get older than a few years. Both machines make great recordings I should say, and I still use them occasionally. Tapes are getting harder to find...

A couple of years ago though, frustrated with the digi-noise problem, lack of new tapes, and inconvenience of getting DAT recordings onto my computer for editing I got myself a compact-flash recorder, a Tascam HD-P2 (http://www.tascam.com/details;9,11,52,14.html) which I love. It has all the things I liked about DAT but none of the drawbacks - no dropouts, no moving parts.

I really recommend you look at solid-state recorders.

Fostex and Marantz also make nice CF recorders.

If I were making your choice it'd be an easy one to make.

Good luck!

HD-P2 Review > http://www.proaudioreview.com/pages/s.0035/t.6328.html