| Hey all,
Yeah, exciting stuff. A few thoughts from my travels.
The DV-RA1000 seems great for recording digitally, which it sounds like you would be doing. The converters in the box were described by one of the top mastering engineers as something like "not too embarrassing," so i wouldn't count it being great as a *reference* playback device (unless you run its SDIF output through Mytek's new Stereo DSD 192 DAC for monitoring), or for converting the analog signal to DSD. But if you're feeding it DSD from a digital source (such as the Genex) or from high-end A-to-DSD converters (such as the dCS models that include SDIF), it should be great for the price. The other thing is it is only stereo, so no 5.1 mixes. And it won't burn SA-CDs; you can only play those discs on the unit itself.
Mytek, as some of you know, has also been working for several years on its D-Master project, which is basically a much more elegant, audiophile-grade execution of the DV-RA1000 concept (though the converters used in the prototypes are already oudated; hopefully Michal will fix this by the time it's widely available). He's trying to create the first digital mastering recorder that sounds every bit as good as 1/2" tape, without the tape. If you have the money and the time, i'd advise considering waiting for the Mytek instead of getting the Tascam.
As for the Phillips DSD export plug-in, that only works with Pro Tools, so it's a PCM-to-DSD solution - not ideal, but an affordable way to get to DSD if you're working in Pro Tools. Phillips makes a Windows-only hardware SA-CD authoring system for over $10k... not really priced competitively with other options.
But another lesser-known solution, for Mac OS X, is from Sonic Studios. They have a package that records DSD and has an authoring option that's expensive but more affordable than some of the other solutions out there.
Cheers,
m |