Word: dat
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Response to the first full-size DAT decks, which Sony began to market selectively in the U.S. late this summer, was cautious. "DAT's a great technology," says a Manhattan retailer. "Our customers are very impressed. But they're buying slowly." Money's tight, of course; a home deck costs $800 to $900. But DAT has spent a good deal of its Stateside existence bound up in a series of legal maneuvers by record companies and music publishers who feared that its crystalline sound would encourage a ruinous splurge of home copying. The legal battling over DAT duplicating has been...
Dogged by technophile speculation, consumer wariness and legal wrangling, the DAT format has been the subject of long-standing curiosity and skepticism. Would it really sound as good as a CD? DAT was demonstrably fine in the recording studio, where it has been used since 1987. But would it measure up to the CD for consumer allure? Would it be as handy, as user friendly, as downright cool? Would it be an all-around commercial monster...
...answers, in order: yes; yes; and, well, could be. There's a lot riding on the outcome. Sony is spearheading the DAT charge with its usual high- profile corporate promotion as well as its snazzy technology. "Before, there were LPs and tape cassettes," says Takeshi Inoue, a manager in Sony's DAT Audio Group. "In the future, there will be CDs and DATs...
...legal problems fall away, worldwide sales have jumped forward. Industry sources in Japan estimate that nearly 100,000 DAT decks made by Sony, JVC and others were sold in 1990 -- up from 60,000 in the previous three years combined. "We sold out of the home units," says Arnie Shurofsky of New York City's Grand Central Radio. "And we can't wait to get the Walkman. That's what's going to push DAT into the mass market...
...DATman, as the new small unit is nicknamed, is Sony's ultimate weapon in the DAT wars, a 1-lb. Walkman that will do just about everything the larger home deck will do, and one thing more: record with a microphone. Digital nirvana. The DATman is about the size of a Stephen King paperback, but rather less thick. It uses the same DAT cassette (which is less than half the size of the traditional analog cassette), records up to two hours of digitized splendor and plays it all back with impeccable fidelity. It makes conventional analog tape sound by comparison...