[Bill[_20_]]

In message , Scott Dorsey
writes
I have a friend right now who is pulling out his hair trying to archive
a bunch of older DAT tapes, because he's getting slightly different
values each time he copies. I think there's some resampling going on
in his cheap hardware, he thinks it's going on in his cheap software.
In neither
case can the vendor's tech support help.

I'm doing exactly that type of transfer at the moment, and can
sympathise.

I have at least 400 DAT tapes, some of them backup copies, all of which
I numbered and documented into a database many years ago. I now cannot
find the database or its backup anywhere, so I have had to start again.
I am doing this because a producer I worked with back then has embarked
on a series of tribute radio broadcasts featuring artists who have
passed on or nearly so. I'm putting the material, divided up where
necessary into CD-length sections, onto a big HD, plus backup, plus the
CD's for the producer.

It has not been easy. I am now on my 4th DAT machine. On my old
Technics, the transport suddenly died. The portable HHB's seem to have
flakey psu's and I'm now on an old Tascam. I've been running into a
Vista desktop with E-Mu 1820 hardware and the portables were into a Win7
laptop through an old Edirol UA-3FX with the FX firmly switched off. For
some reason I have to boot the desktop twice before the 1820 fires up. I
hate Vista, but the XP machine is otherwise engaged.

Scott's post has reminded me that when I started, I successfully did an
invert and sum comparison with the Technics, but since then the pressure
and stress has outweighed any further checks.

I'm, of course, just copying via analogue, so this is very off-topic.

I have the service manual for the Technics. I probably put it in a safe
place together with the missing old HD's containing the DAT database.
--
Bill