New converter on XT-20?

[Kasey]

maybe this is a stupid question.. i havent had my ADAT for very long and dont have much experience with them... but my question is how do i (if i can) use new A/D converters on the XT-20 and bypass the built in converters?? The XT-20 of course has 20 bit converters, with a 102 dB dynamic range. i'm wanting to get 24 bit converters with a better dynamic range, how would i do this? by the way i dont have much money so if this thing is going to cost over a thousand tell me.

[notbradsohner]

use the adat optical in. There are a lot of converteres out there, check out apogee. 8 channels will be tough to keep under a grand tho.

[Blue Bear Sound]

There's no point in using 24-bit converters in front of the XT20, since the XT20 will only pass/store 20-bit digital audio -- you'd only be truncating the last 4 bits, unless you dither to 20-bit from the external converter (which will still probably sound better than the stock converters, if you use a high-end outboard unit - Lucid, Apogee, etc...)

[Stefan Elmblad]

You can record at 24bit with the XT20 and an external converter, but you're limited to 6 channels in that mode. The last 4 bits isn't truncated when doing this, instead it's simply recorded elsewhere on the tape.

6 channels of 24 bit sound from a good external converter is what makes the Type II adats so popular as mixdown medium for 5.1 surround.