Video & Audio: The Challis Report SONY'S TCD·D3 DAT 'WALKMAN' RECORDER

This month, Louis Challis had the opportunity to test the very latest Sony 'Walkman' - a full rotary DAT (digital audio tape) recorder, in a compact portable case. As he discovered, its performance is out of all proportion to its modest size ...

just when you thought it was safe to been developed, and although I may drum, whose diameter is 30mm. With a venture back into the hifi store of your have loosely described it elsewhere as head diameter of that magnitude, the choice, Sony upsets the status quo and a 'toy', such a description is in a practi­ designers could get away with a 90° con­ releases the DAT 'Walkman' - a product cal sense inappropriate. I have used the tact angle for the tape on to the rotary likely to turn the hifi market on its same term to describe the launches and drum. But with a dramatic reduction in metaphorical earl As I sit here writing the yachts that some of my well-heeled ac­ the size and dimensions of the tape start of this review, I'm listening through quaintances own, as that is the term transport system, and particularly with a headphones to this latest of Sony's which their wives also use to describe drum diameter only half of that figure electronic wonders, and it surely puts those costly items. (1 Smm) an entirely different approach every Walkman you've ever seen or had to be adopted. heard into the realm of the passe. Head drum size As the Sony design engineers soon dis­ It's a little more than a month since I When Sony released its first battery­ covered, the 1Smm drum diameter wrote about the Philips prototype port­ operated DAT recorder (the TCD-Dl 0) at necessitated a 180° angle of contact, able DCC tape recorders that were on the Tokyo Audio Fair in 1987, many which of course generates all sorts of un­ show at the Winter CES in Les Vegas. If people were surprised that they had expected or unwanted problems. The you read that review, you will realise chosen to incorporate the same basic most critical of those relates to prospec­ that the most telling difference between tape transport system (and rotary head) as tive increases in head and tape wear. Sony's R-DAT Walkman and its future they had used in their first consumer DAT To solve those problems, the engineers DCC competitors is that the DAT recorder - the ~ig mains powered DTC- at Sony had to literally 'turn cartwheels', Walkman uses a rotary head system 1000 ES-DAT recorder, which is at least and as you may have guessed, they have and relatively straightforward record­ six times the size and more than six times managed to pull a nul"Qber of rabbits out ing and playback electronics, whilst the weight of the hat to obviate virtually all of those the DCC contenders use a multi-track It would appear that Sony's manage­ problems that flowed on as a result of stationary head system and far more ment had adopted this conservative ap­ their adoption of the tiny 1Smm diameter complex electronics. proach, as they had baulked at the cost rotary recording head. Of course there are a number of other of simultaneously developing a second Now it's one thing to design and significant differences, one of the more and somewhat smaller DAT tape develop a miniature tape transport sys­ pragmatic of which being that the Sony transport system. tem, with a natty little rotary head system, DAT Walkman is likely to be on sale in When I discovered this, I was even but it is a horse of a slightly different hue your hifi shop right now, whilst the DCC more surprised to learn that top manage­ to miniaturise all the electronics that was contender has only just started to reach ment at Matsushita (National/Technics) initially contained in the DTC-1 OOOES the factory production lines. But don't had taken the opposite approach, and (which weighed more than 12 kilograms), hold on to your breath - it may be as had pushed ahead with the development miniaturise all the functions and com­ much as a year to 18 months before you of a smaller DAT tape transport for their ponents of the TCD-Dl 0 battery operated see the first production models of the portable DAT recorder - which was thus recorder (which weighed more than four DCC recorders. one evolutionary step ahead of the Sony kilograms) and then end up with a DAT As you know, the heart of a R-DAT re­ TCD-Dl 0 recorder. recorder which weighs around half a corder is its tape transport system, which Even though each successive Sony kilogram - and yet provides virtually all uses a small and extremely well designed professional DAT recorder released the same functions as those recorders. In and superbly engineered rotary head sys­ over the next three years incorporated fact to top it off, they've added quite a tem, which is very similar to the rotary many outstanding new refinements, few more to boot. head in your VCR - but of course much none of those new DAT tape transport As if that wasn't enough, the TCD-D3 smaller. Obviously the smaller that the systems was smaller than the Technics still contains a particularly effective tape transport system becomes, then the model SV-DA10. LCD functional display unit. Yet it is more delicate and costly it becomes. Now the TCD-Dl 0, the PCM2000, and small enough to slip into your jacket As it would appear, the Sony TCD-D3 I suspect all subsequent Sony DAT pocket, or clip onto your belt, so that currently incorporates the smallest rotary machines (until now) all appeared to in­ you can go jogging. head tape transport system that has yet corporate a conventional rotary head In addition it offers more than twice the

8 ELECTRONICS Australia, June 1992

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