A NEW MASTER AT TASCAM

22 July 2013

TASCAM is labeling its new DA-3000 high-definition master recorder/ADDA converter as an upgrade of the DV-RA1000HD, although at first glance there’s a bit of a chalk-and-cheese factor. The DA-3000 has the same BurrBrown A/D converters, but has improved circuitry otherwise and a more modern design. Also, there’s no internal hard drive or CD/DVD optical drive. The DA-3000 has been squeezed down to a 1RU machine – its predecessor is 2RU – designed to fit in any size recording studio, professional or home, for recording, mastering, broadcast or “replacing a DAT machine” (replacing a what?). Before you start reconfiguring your racks it’s worth noting some fine-print in the specs that recommends at least a full RU of space clear above the DA-3000, which is a fan-less design, for ventilation. The recorder supports high sampling rates up to PCM 192 kHz and DSD 5.6MHz. Instead of that hard drive you have the option of recording to SDHC and Compact Flash. Multiple units can be linked for increased channel recording. Connections on the unit include balanced XLR I/O, unbalanced RCA I/O along with digital audio I/F AES-EBU, S/PDIF for PCM and SDIF-3/DSD-raw for DSD. Full specifications are at www.tascam.com

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR: CMI Music and Audio www.cmi.com.au