ADAT Transfers - Alesis 8 Track

Alesis ADAT (1991)  (Alesis Digital Audio Tape)

Released in 1991, the first ADAT machine took the recording industry by storm. An 8 track high quality digital recorder with 16 bit depth and 48 kHz sampling - all in a compact footprint. The ADAT's use standard S-VHS cassettes that allow up to 60 minutes of better than CD quality recordings to be made.  Initially, the first machines had an approximate $4,000 street price, but compared to their earlier 8 track open reel counterparts priced about the same for a studio grade machine at the time, the ADAT won the quality battle hands down. The current era of Multi-track digital recording had begun !

The original recorder was 16 bit/44.1 kHz sample rate for 8 track CD quality and later deemed Type I models..  Later models that came as technology advanced, deemed "Type II", supported 20 bit depth and 48 kHz sampling.   Type II machines could record both 16 or 20 bit depths at either 44.1 or 48 kHz sample rates and play back either.  However Type I machines could not play back 20 bit Type II recorded tapes.

Like it's soon to come Tascam competitor (The DA series), the ADAT's can be slaved & synchronized together and the amount of the channels you can add is limited for practical purposes by the number of machines you could afford.     (Before ending up in divorce court anyways...)

One major advantage of the ADAT deck, is the 1/2" S-VHS tape format it uses.  The much wider tape with it's wide track pitch is much less susceptible to edge damage than Tascam's 8mm format. The much lower data density per square mm owing to the larger tape footprint, results in increased reliability and longevity of the tape.

A standard S-VHS T-120 would allow 40 minutes of recording time...   8 tracks of audio to be recorded at once required a fair amount of bandwidth, thus the tape moved at 3 times the speed of a typical VHS video deck recording in the highest quality SP mode.

Specs of the XT-20