[QuadList] QuadQuiz: Answer to-What company used a 2" Quad machine for digital audio recording?

[Ted Langdell]

On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:20 PM, Ted Langdell wrote:

> QuadQuiz: What company used a 2" Quad machine for digital audio  
> recording?
>
> Ted



And the answer is:
Denon, a subsidary of Nippon Columbia in Japan.

Details are found here:
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/pdf/fine_dawn-of-digital.pdf

In 1969-1971, Denon leased an NHK stereo PCM recorder and conducted  
numerous
test recordings. Retired Denon engineer Dr. Takeaki Anazawa told the  
author: 'We got a
lot of ideas about improvement of (the) system from these  
experiences." Denon's tests
also resulted in two commercial albums, the first commercial use of  
PCM digital technology.
Indeed, the first commercial digital recording was Nippon Columbia  
NCB-7003,
"Something" by Steve Marcus, released January 1971. The only other  
commercial release
to come out of these early Denon/NHK recordings was Nippon Columbia  
NCC-8004,
"The World of Sutomu Yamashita," according to Anazawa."

Satisfied that PCM digital was an improvement over analog tape, Denon  
engineers
set out to develop their own VTR-based system. Their goals were  
improved audio quality
and multi-track recording capability, which then made the system  
viable in most commercial
recording settings of the 1970s.

In 1972, Denon unveiled the DN-023R, an 8-channel system featuring 13- 
bit resolution and a sampling rate of 47.25kHz. The system used a  
Hitachi (then called Shiba Electronics) 4-head open-reel broadcast VTR  
as its
storage format.

(TL asks:  Would this have been a Shibaden SV-7000, seen here  
transformed into a Merlin ME-68 on LabGuy's website?
http://www.labguysworld.com/Merlin_ME68.htm)

Here's a photo  of the Denon machine from:
http://www.sempre-audio.at/images/Report/100_Jahre_Denon/Denon_DN-023R_PCM-Recorder_670.jpg

Looks line an SV-7000 to me.)




Anazawa noted: "We used the low-band mode of the VTR, for black and  
white (video). The reasons were stronger (performance) than color mode  
for tape dropout and less cost." Anazawa said, with the DN-023R, "we  
could edit music recordings and cut (LP) discs using advanced  
(preview) head" to control lathe automation.
Denon deployed the DN-023R system immediately and used it to make  
commercial release
recordings throughout the 1970s.

There's a Billboard magazine article with pictures here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=fSQEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT31&lpg=PT31&dq=Denon,+digital+audio,+2%22+Quad&source=bl&ots=UNjJuD5cy8&sig=cZ4Cep2qnya9iyqz_KWY26Tdk2U&hl=en&ei=CRTpTZfwDJL0swOyg4T3DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v 
=onepage&q&f=false

More can be found in the AES Journal, Volume 21 Number 7 pp. 535-541;  
September 1973.

How'd we get here:
I ran across this tidbit when investigating International Video  
Corp.'s use of Pulse Interval Modulation to record video with it's  
successful 1" helical machines.

Didn't find anything specific to IVC and PIM, but did run across a  
mention of Denon's use of Quad for PCM audio recording on Wikipedia's  
page about PCM.

See next post for more about IVC and PIM

Ted


Ted Langdell
Secretary

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