Erik wrote:

I'm a student about to enter a conservatory next year for classical
performance, and I'm looking at options for recording concerts, master
classes and other important events. I have a minidisc already, but I always
cringe at recording one-shot performances with it due to the compression,
and the difficulty at outputting digitally to the computer...I need something
portable, so lugging a computer to concerts etc is not feasible.

Can you wait a couple of months? http://www.sounddevices.com/products/7.htm looks like the most likely candidate for pro DAT replacement, but with ~120 hour recording time and far better preamps than any DAT machine I've heard.