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> I do not think that DDS can have any more robust error > CORRECTION > when playing DAT tapes than a DAT machine can as the > additional interleaving and error correction codes are not > in the DAT tape. > > That is not to say that DDS tapes themselves do not have > more error CORRECTION than audio DATs. It's like CD-ROM > (as I understand it) has another layer of error CORRECTION > as opposed to audio CDs When a DDS is used to extract audio, it is set to operate in "Audio mode", which is one reason a straight-out -of the box DDS drive might not work for this. The drive must be "Audio Capable". The Sony SDT-9000 I have needed to have the firmware upgraded before it would work. I don't know if any extra layers of error correction or concealment are going on when the drive is operating in audio mode. I do find that tapes extracted with obvious glitches on the DDS will generally play well on my Sony R-500. The debris issue is something that makes me wary of using a DDS drive for high volumes of work. I would appreciate any advice on the best way to clean the heads on a DDS drive. > > I really want to know when someone has a "freelance" DDS > DAT reading "factory" set up so I can refer people to > them. > I have one DDS drive in my main computer, and have transferred quite a few DATs, with mixed results. Some tapes extracted perfectly, others with momemtary glitching which was readily observable in a waveform. In most cases, these are only a few samples long, and can be easily interpolated with Wavelab's waveform restorer. Sometimes the reading drive freaks out if it encounters a gap in the ABS, resulting in a block of square-waves where the audio should be. This also happens if the drive reads past the end of the audio into non-ABS territory. When I extract a drive that looks to have a lot of problems, I attempt an spdif transfer with my R500. In most cases this works. In general, I am excited about the prospect of using DDS, but feel the presently available tools are not reliable enough to guarantee good results I have a PC so I havent tried any of the Mac tools, but any of the tools I have found were written years ago, and have no support. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, a yahoo group was recently started dedicated to DDS audio ( http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/datheads2wav/ ), and one member has been working on developing a new piece of software for PCs (WinDAT.exe). I have used WinDAT and it seems to do a pretty good job, at least as good as the others I tried (DAT2WAV, VDAT) but it is still pretty rudimentary and.The discussion there seems to have died off in the last few months, but perhaps a few new members might spark the discussion. -Matt Sohn