[Kenny Gioia]

Crappy engineers tend to have crap gear.

Great engineers tend to have great gear.

So it's very difficult to tell. But I have heard crappy recordings made by crappy engineers with hi end gear.

I've always said that ADAT's got a raw deal because they were in the hands of amateurs. I never owned a set but I did do a record on them once using a Neve 8068 Console for tracking and mixing and they sounded fine.