I own two Tascam DA-P1 recorders. One recorder has been used weekly since 1996 and only failed when it fell out of a vehicle. After repair, it has worked flawlessly. My second machine has only seen a few years of similar service, but it has never failed. I use a Porta Brace equipment bag specifically made for this recorder. It helps to keep the dust out. I think high humidity is a problem with all DAT recorders and I do not have this problem in Arizona, however, I have travelled to other areas where the humidity is nearly 100%. I believe in desiccants for cameras and photography equipment. perhaps my judicious use of keeping my equipment in dry bags or dry cases has spared me problems others have had. I can recommend the Tascam DA-P1 because I have recorded hundreds of DAT tapes in awful field conditions, including during rainstorms, and have never had either recorder fail in use.
Greg Clark At 09:24 AM 5/5/2004, you wrote: >From: Jim Nollman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Monitoring this discussion on field recorders, I feel bound to add my own two >cents. One recorder I do not recommend anyone buying is the Tascam DA-P1 or >its more recent incarnations. Not only myself, but others I know, have had >numerous problems with this DAT recorder. > >After I owned it for 6 months, the play button on my machine suddenly stopped >working while on an assignment in Canada. I brought it to the Tascam North >American headquarters in Toronto and spent a long afternoon sitting with their >chief engineer watching him basically conduct a lobotomy by ripping out the >unnecessary wiring that controlled play and record, which he described as an >accident waiting to happen. He was the chief engineer so I let him do it, >since he told me he had done the same operation on many other machines that >had the exact same problem. > >Another issue is that Tascam did not stand behind their own warranty. Their >rep in Seattle seemed to go out of his way to avoid taking any responsibility >for fixing my machine when it still was under warranty. At that time, Id used >it for a grand total of about 8 hours. Then his shop charged me a lot of money >for a repair that left the buttons still nonfunctional. > >Today, I still use it, relegated to a baroque procedure to get it to function >at all. And Im no longer willing to keep throwing money at Tascam to keep >repairing the same problem it had when I first got it. > >This $1200 machine comes with no cover. If you buy it, you then have to buy >a leather cover as a $120 accessory. > > > Best regards, > > Jim Nollman > <http://interspecies.com/> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
