Should I grab a Pioneer DAT D1000 sold on ebbay?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Faucault
  • Start date Start date
F

Faucault

New member
Hi there,
There's a Pioneer D-1000 DAT recorder on an auction in Germany. ebay.de - and before trying to win this auction I would like to here some experts' evaluation. Is it good for recording acoustic live music? It's sold as defect, so my first worry is if there's still spares to buy. Secondly, how is this recorder?? As far as I have found out it's a top of the range. Auction is ending this Friday.
Take care!
Patrick
 
Nietzsche sagt DAT ist tot.

DAT is ancient technology. Get a used Zoom H2 or something similar.
 
Faucault said:
Hi there,
There's a Pioneer D-1000 DAT recorder on an auction in Germany. ebay.de - and before trying to win this auction I would like to here some experts' evaluation. Is it good for recording acoustic live music? It's sold as defect, so my first worry is if there's still spares to buy. Secondly, how is this recorder?? As far as I have found out it's a top of the range. Auction is ending this Friday.
Take care!
Patrick
Click to expand...

Hi Patrick,

You should read the description again. The seller has just updated the listing admitting that there are more problems than just the faulty switch (why am I not surprised?). And it's not quite mint...

I bought a D-1000 with similar faults back in December and ended up spending around 500eur on the repair so you should be in the same ballpark, maybe a bit more, that is if you could still find a repair shop that deals with DATs.
Everyone thinks it shares everything with the 1000ES so you could easily find donor parts but it's just the mechanical base they share and not the loading part. And the transport is a 4 motor direct drive so there are no belts to spin the tape like the seller says.

Hope this helps,
B
 
Last edited:
DAT = Digital Anchor Technology

They're really only good for small boats and muddy bottoms.
 
I still have the Panasonic 3800 I had in the 90s, and I use it as a DA. It refuses to play any of my old tapes, but will record and replay fine. The alignment is out, that's all, but since new, it's been a constant issue. A couple of years then a retweak, and then again and again, and then the period started to get shorter and shorter. DAT was a great idea, but the two studio machines and the portable I had were really quite unreliable when I look back on them.

I remember the horrible feeling watching the display in error counting mode, where it would be between 0 and 40 or so, but then suddenly jump to over 1000, and you new just a few more corrections and the output would mute!

Buying a machine that is in anything other than perfect condition is crazy.
 
I just bought another DAT machine - Because I had to. And DAT is the ONLY reason.

Even if it's free, a bench fee to check it is going to be more than it's worth on the open market.

Another strong vote for "don't bother."
 
forget DAT, get a lazer disc player instead, giant CD's the size of vinyl is the future
 
ANY used DAT will cease to work 1 minute out of the box. This is assuming it ever worked at all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top