9

Digital audio tape recorders

Tape recording has played a large part in the history of digital audio, and continues to be important although the rapid adoption of recorders based on hard disks and optical disks is having a significant effect. Tape recording using the rotary-head principle pioneered in video recorders is used in digital audio alongside the more conventional stationary head approach. Both of these will be considered here. The reader is referred to Chapters 6 and 7 for an explanation of coding and error-correction principles.

9.1 Types of recorder

Digital audio become economic with the development of high-density recorders in the 1970s. The necessary rate of almost two megabits per second for a stereo signal can today be recorded ...

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