Mike Rivers wrote

I seem to
remember the name "Horizon" associated with an ADAT aftermarket board
set that sounds like this,

A friend of mine had the "horizon boards" installed in his blackface ADATS
years ago. The XT20 pretty much did away with that particular update plus it
had a lot of additional features. Prices seem to less than $500 for the
XT20's.

Wayne

(Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1058111837k@trad...
While looking through the stack of to-be-discarded Mix magazines, I
ran across an article on ADAT modifications. The focus of the article
was on an $800 modification offered by Jim Williams (Audio Upgrades)
and a $500 modification by Eddie King (Angel City). It mentioned
another one in a sidebar from Digital Lab Studios which consited of a
new analog input board and a new analog output board. I seem to
remember the name "Horizon" associated with an ADAT aftermarket board
set that sounds like this, but may be yet another manufacturer. And
then there was a company from Puerto Rico who was doing a mod.

I think I remember the Puerto Rico Company. They were making some
pretty
amazing claims about their mod...that it would turn your blackface
into a
sweet analog sounding machine.
The only thing is they made an announcement, printed some brochures
with basically no details...essentially a "stay tuned" soon to come
announcement.

I never heard anything more. Don't know if they actually did anything
and they were such a no-name company, it almost seemed like a scam?

I think I still have the brochures around here somewhere (where I
would never find them).

Fleaman

In article writes:

I think I remember the Puerto Rico Company. They were making some
pretty
amazing claims about their mod...that it would turn your blackface
into a
sweet analog sounding machine.
The only thing is they made an announcement, printed some brochures
with basically no details...essentially a "stay tuned" soon to come
announcement.

I saw them at a NAMM show, just once, and never heard about them
again. I might still have the flyer, and if I could remember the name
of the company I might even be able to find it. (they're all filed
alphabetically by manufacturer)

In another Mix issue, there was a review of an Audio Upgrades
modification (also much hari-kari) for the TASCAM DA-88. That's
another one that I never heard about in the real world. There must
have been at least one modified so that Mix could check it out, but I
wonder how many others there are.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

(Mike Rivers) wrote in message news:znr1058145571k@trad...
In article writes:

I think I remember the Puerto Rico Company. They were making some
pretty
amazing claims about their mod...that it would turn your blackface
into a
sweet analog sounding machine.
The only thing is they made an announcement, printed some brochures
with basically no details...essentially a "stay tuned" soon to come
announcement.

I saw them at a NAMM show, just once, and never heard about them
again. I might still have the flyer, and if I could remember the name
of the company I might even be able to find it. (they're all filed
alphabetically by manufacturer)

In another Mix issue, there was a review of an Audio Upgrades
modification (also much hari-kari) for the TASCAM DA-88. That's
another one that I never heard about in the real world. There must
have been at least one modified so that Mix could check it out, but I
wonder how many others there are.

There are around 25 or so of those Audio Upgrades modified DA-88's
out there. They had premium grade Analog Devices D/A converters
installed. The sip jap opamps were replaced with dip linear tech
opamps via a pinout changing daughterboard. The coupling caps were
changed and bypassed with Wima poly films. The output butterworth low
pass filters are re-designed into 45k hz bessel linear-phase filters
which lowers phase shift to 42 degrees and offers good square wave
response. The butterworth filters cause ringing which re-arranges the
harmonic content of the musical waveform and adds to the zippy "CD
sound" of some digital recordings. Apogee started out making linear
phase filters for digital dash machines back in the 1980's.
That MIX review was a blind shootout between a stock DA-88, a
modified machine and the Sony version. Most folks picked the modified
DA-88 as better sounding. The Sony sounded different and darker than
the Tascams, even the Tascam factory rep who was there and heard the
difference couldn't explain why even though Tascam made the machine
for Sony.
Jim Williams Audio Upgrades

In article znr1058111837k@trad, (Mike Rivers)
wrote:

While looking through the stack of to-be-discarded Mix magazines, I
ran across an article on ADAT modifications. The focus of the article
was on an $800 modification offered by Jim Williams (Audio Upgrades)
and a $500 modification by Eddie King (Angel City). It mentioned
another one in a sidebar from Digital Lab Studios which consited of a
new analog input board and a new analog output board. I seem to
remember the name "Horizon" associated with an ADAT aftermarket board
set that sounds like this, but may be yet another manufacturer. And
then there was a company from Puerto Rico who was doing a mod.

I don't follow eBay, and I don't recall ever seeing anyone posting an
ADAT for sale here that had any of these mods (though I knew someone
who bought an ADAT used that had the "Horizon" or whatever it was
input board). I'm curious as to how many there actually were floating
around, and if those that were upgraded are still happily in use.

Jim Williams, since you're still around and doing this sort of work,
do you recall about how many of these ADAT mods you did? And would
anyone today pay a few hundred bucks more than the going price for a
used ADAT (which must be around fifty cents these days) because of one
of these upgrades?

I wouldn't. I'd rather run a separate A/D through a midiman SAM
format converter (spdif to lightpipe) and run the whole output of the
thing through another SAM set to 'mix'. For that matter you could run
into a Yamaha 01V just as easily if it had the ADAT card.

There are limitations with the all-digital mix too, the expected
sterile chilliness, but it beats hell out of ADAT converters, to my
ears. And you can get a SAM converter box for under $100 on ebay, most
likely. Ergonomics are hellish, no master fader (or any faders for that
matter) but it's still great for doing a really clean mixdown off an
ADAT to SPDIF. Competes very well with stuff like homebrew resistance
mixers because it's just as minimalist, but omits a whole A/D-D/A stage.

I have my two SAMs so I speak from experience here...

Chris Johnson

On 13 Jul 2003 14:33:01 -0400, (Mike Rivers)
wrote:


While looking through the stack of to-be-discarded Mix magazines, I
ran across an article on ADAT modifications. The focus of the article
was on an $800 modification offered by Jim Williams (Audio Upgrades)
and a $500 modification by Eddie King (Angel City). It mentioned
another one in a sidebar from Digital Lab Studios which consited of a
new analog input board and a new analog output board. I seem to
remember the name "Horizon" associated with an ADAT aftermarket board
set that sounds like this, but may be yet another manufacturer. And
then there was a company from Puerto Rico who was doing a mod.

I don't follow eBay, and I don't recall ever seeing anyone posting an
ADAT for sale here that had any of these mods (though I knew someone
who bought an ADAT used that had the "Horizon" or whatever it was
input board). I'm curious as to how many there actually were floating
around, and if those that were upgraded are still happily in use.

Jim Williams, since you're still around and doing this sort of work,
do you recall about how many of these ADAT mods you did? And would
anyone today pay a few hundred bucks more than the going price for a
used ADAT (which must be around fifty cents these days) because of one
of these upgrades?



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )


I have the Horizon boards in my old blackface ADAT, still happily in
use. I wouldn't do it today but it was a good deal at the time.
There were about $300 if I recall correctly.

Brian King
Lordonly.net