[wirebox]

Hello All,
I also purchased a first run X-48 and have had trouble with it.
Installed ADAT cards to run with our Yamaha digital desks. When i installed the cards i did a fair amount of poking around the chassis. First surprise was the SATA drive. All documents and marketing have pointed to a EIDE drive installed from factory. Only half the RAM slots are filled.
I tested the machine briefly and sent it straight out to a new TV show. The A1 I have known and worked with for 15 years (trust is not a factor).
The A1 also updated the firmware to the current version 1.02.
Issues listed below were reported to my by the A1.

1. After recording 40 tracks to the internal drive for 45-50 minutes the machines drops out of record or locks up completely, only reset option was to pull the iec cable. This only happens when locked to timecode from external source (tc gen. is locked to house black). Freewheel is fine as well as lock and drop.
All data recorded before lockup is ok.
The only issue i can see here is the house black may have been out of phase by the time it got to the x-48 and the machine could not resolve to the black and code....?????

2. Only one external drive can be mounted per buss. You cannot mount 2 firewire drives or 2 usb drives but you can mount a firewire and usb drive.

3. I only had 3 hours to check the machine when it came back. I recorded 48 tracks for 2 hours w/o problems, not locked to any timecode or blackburst. When playing back i heard dropouts on all tracks during playback only. After hearing a dropout I would rewind and the dropout would not happen in the same place.

I plan a severe test session for next week.
1. Record 48 tracks locked to timecode w/o blackburst.
2. Record 48 tracks locked to timecode w blackburst.
2.5 try the above test with Miditimecode.
3. Resync playback and check frame sync.
4. Record pinknoise and export to Nuendo, zoom in and check samples for dropouts.
5. Test multiple external drives.

Are there any other tests anyone can recommend?

Also,
exploring the possibilities of:
Installing a jumbo SATA drive (after warranty period)
Thereby separating the OS and data drives which we all know is a big issue.
ESATA (external SATA)


Maybe we can all get together and get these issues resolved for Tascam, i guess 2 years of R&D wasn't enough.

thanks for your thoughts...