Tascam DA-3000

FWIW, my suspicion is that the conflicting assessments of the Tascam recorder by Jeff (JWM) and Dhl93449 are both correct. And one look at the system description thread for Jeff's extraordinarily high quality system will make it abundantly clear that his much better assessment of the Tascam is not attributable to any lack of musical resolution in his system.

So what could account for the differences in the two assessments? A possibility that occurs to me is that the ultra-wide bandwidth of Dhl's Spectral DMC-10 preamp resulted in spurious RF energy being introduced into the Tascam, which its anti-aliasing filter could not adequately reject. Perhaps because that energy simply bypassed the filter, coupling "around it" and into the A/D circuitry via stray capacitances, less than ideal circuit grounds, or other extraneous paths.

Conceivably that spurious RF energy might have been picked up out of the air, from electrical or electronic devices within Dhl's home or even from radio stations. Keep in mind that there have been more than a few threads here in which people have reported actually hearing radio stations through their systems while listening to vinyl sources, while using components having vastly narrower bandwidths than the Spectral.

The bottom line: If my theory is correct, while the poor results Dhl obtained with the Tascam reflect less than optimal design, the Tascam would provide significantly better results in most systems than it did in his application.

Regards,
-- Al

Dtc, if I'm not mistaken the phono stage Dhl used is built into his Spectral DMC-10 preamp. And he had indicated earlier in the thread that he was using the DMC-10's main outputs, not its tape outputs, to supply the signals to the Tascam. So the experiments that would seem to suggest themselves would be to either record from a different source altogether, with the Spectral disconnected and turned off, or perhaps to record from the Spectral's tape outputs.

Regards,
-- Al

Fair enough, Dhl93449. Your post just above solidifies your case persuasively, as far as I'm concerned. My theory was an attempt to reconcile your sonic assessment of the Tascam with Jeff's (whose opinions command great respect in my book), while taking into account the nearly unique ultra-wide bandwidths of the Spectral products.

One minor nit, though:

I won't repeat that other post here, but basically the Spectral was coupled to the Benchmark which fed digital AES/EBU to the Tascam. If Al is right, the same RF would have been transmitted to the Benchmark and the sonic results would have been the same.

My theory revolved around the assumption that the anti-aliasing filter in the Tascam was less than fully effective at RF frequencies, perhaps because the design is such that some RF frequencies might bypass the filter altogether via unintended/parasitic circuit paths. If so, the results would very possibly not have been the same with the Benchmark.

Regards,
-- Al

Jeff, thanks, but no, I don't have plans to go to CES or any of the other major shows (e.g., RMAF) in the foreseeable future. In part because I'm on the east coast.

Best regards,
-- Al