I actually would like to place the adats on a road and run over them with a big truck. They ruined the recording industry when they came out. I had just bought a brand new good sounding 16 track tape machine then the adat came along and everyone wanted studios with inferior sounding Adats as it was Digital and digital is best
Everyone that rang the studio "do you have Adats?"
Alan.
Exactly.
I remember when I was shopping for a multtrack machince...looking at the Tascam stuff, but finally ended up with the Fostex G16.
Anyway...it was right at that time before the ADATs hit the streets. So the sales guy in one of the music stores was trying to sway me into waiting, and not buying a tape deck. I'm sure he must have had some manufacturer inside info about the ADATs soon to be available...but he just said to, there's going to be some really great new multitrack technology that will make the tape obsolete.
Boy...I'm so glad I ignored the guy and still bought the Fostex G16...but yeah, everyone was going nuts over the crappy ADATs, and analog tape for the pro-sumer market went right into the toilet. I think if those stupid ADATs were held off for another 1-2 years, the better machines, like the G16 and the Tascam MSR decks would have gained a greater foothold, and then further development and support of them would have continued...instead, production dropped off...and they soon vanished. Same thing with the smaller project studio consoles...like the Tascam M3500, etc. They would have kept developing/improving them for the home/project studios...but everyone suddenly had digital fever.
My dumb purchase was the DAT deck!
It was going to be my mastering machine...and I managed to complete one bunch of song to the DAT...but they just died off so quick, that no one was buying them anymore. I still have the DAT, it was the early DA30 from Tascam, and mine got the chip upgrades at one point that fixed some issues.
Still works great, like new...but I can't remember the last time I even powered it up...and on my most recent gear rack overhaul...out it came. I needed the room for some new gear I bought last year...so the DAT is now a doorstop.
Actually...now that I think about it...my REAL DUMB purchase was my AKAI S1000 racked sampler. That damn thing set me back about $6k around '92-'93. I got extra memory added (a whopping 8MB!!!) and some other card upgrades that cost a fortune at the time.
That damn thing is still sitting in a rack with some other sound modules...none of which I've used in at least 10 years...but it still all works, and I have a pretty extensive sound library (16bit)...which has some decent stuff. It was more when I was obsessed with MIDI and synths and all that nonsense.