Perhaps you may wish to email [log in to unmask] for his
findings on DAT preservation and other options, a paper he recently
presented at the 2009 IASA conference in Athens.

Cheers
Marie
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 9:39 AM, Richard L. Hess <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> At 01:54 PM 2009-11-01, A. F. Thal wrote:
>
> The notion (championed by persons whom I would characterize as being
>> mis-informed) that archival audio transfer technicians might now collect a
>> number of such worn-out machines for spare parts, in order to re-assemble
>> enough working units to go forward with the transfer work, is one I find
>> preposterous if any (even bare minimum) technical standards are to be met.
>>
>
> I would have to agree with Fred here. Having obtained some other decks,
> sight unseen, thinking they would be useful for parts, has been a very
> hit-or-miss affair and I now no longer collect parts machines as the same
> parts seem to be broken on many of them. That is not to say that I'm getting
> rid of any parts or parts machines, but I see it counter-productive to
> acquire any more. There comes a time where the most-likely-to-fail part will
> have to be re-sourced or re-manufactured in one way or another.
>
> With that said, the A80 appears to be the most easy to maintain deck
> available due to its use of standard (but very high quality) ball bearings.
> I am sure that Fred returns these machines to the finest "Swiss Watch"
> precision possible.
>
> We are seeing fewer and fewer "cream puff" versions of any tape machine and
> a beat-to-a-pulp machine is a sad thing to try and put right.
>
> With that said, I do spend a fair amount of my time in machine maintenance,
> but the most annoying formats are the oddball cassette formats. My
> four-track Tascam cassette just died and it sounds better (though is not as
> flexible) than my CMS unit. Sigh. The real annoyance here is that I do about
> two to four tapes a year in this format.
>
> As a broad caveat, I am not aware of anyone doing what Fred is doing for
> DAT and other dedicated digital audio tape machines (maybe Manhattan Sound
> Technicians in Minneapolis) so I think that these dedicated digital formats
> are even more at risk than the older open reel.
>
> Thanks Jim and Fred for highlighting these issues. I feel comfortable that
> I'll be able to transfer tapes as long as I want to with the parts that I
> have and are still available, but I'm not encouraging my sons to continue
> with it (thankfully, one is thinking about being a doctor).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
>
> Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
> Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
> Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
> Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.
>