I have my living room setup complete.
Last weekend I was trying to record the vinyl TRON album from Daft Punk to DCC and DAT.
My main amp is a Marantz SR7000 which can also do the A/D conversion.
I have a Marantz DD-82 for DCC and a Philips DAT850 for DAT.
When I try to record digitally, the DD-82 simply records.
To my amazement it records both analogue and digital in 44.1 kHz according to the display.
Is that normal?
DCC600, DCC951 and DAT all record analogue in 48kHz with no way to change it.
(DAT can be set to LP which reduces samplerate to 32kHz)
The DAT850 keeps flashing âcopy prohibitâ.
Only when doing an analogue recording, the DAT850 allows recording.
Iâm not familiar with your receiver or with the DAT850.
As long as the SPDIF output on the receiver is configured to send PCM stereo (not Dolby or DTS), at 32 or 44.1 or 48 kHz, any DCC recorder can record it digitally. I assume this should be true for the DAT850 as well.
All DCC recorders can record through one or more analog inputs. If you make an analog recording, the recording is always encoded at 44.1 kHz. The built-in ADC in DCC recorders canât sample at any other rate than 44.1, though some recorders (including your DCC951) can process 18 or even 20 bits per sample instead of just 16 bits.
Digital recording is only allowed from an original, but not from a copy. This is because of Serial Copying Management System, also known as SCMS. You can make a digital copy of a CD, but that recording cannot be copied any further unless you make the second generation an analog copy.
If you want to make a second-generation digital copy, you will need some way to defeat SCMS. There are devices you can buy to change the SCMS codes on an SPDIF line. I donât have any recommendations; I use an SCMS defeater that I bought as a kit in the 1990s, based on an article in Elektor magazine. It not only resets the SCMS âcopyrighted/non-copyrightedâ and âoriginal/copyâ bits, but it also changes the source bits. This is necessary because some digital recorders (including the DCC951) have firmware bugs that misinterpret the bits in the input format. I own a CD-single where the audio was accidentally encoded with one of the bits set wrong, and my 730 refuses to record it without the SCMS defeater.
You can also work around the SCMS limitations by grabbing the audio with a digital audio receiver device on your computer, and then using a digital output (e.g. an HDMI to DVI+SPDIF splitter) to play it back.
Bottom line: youâre not doing anything wrong; itâs just the way it works. To make it work better, you have to probably buy some gear to work around SCMS. Or just make an analog recording.
I was just perplexed because the DD-82 simply accepts the digital audio and records, where the
DAT850 has SCMS go berserk.
I hoped to skip the step where I need the audio interface to do my recordings to PC before writing them to DAT.
PS: the auto function on the DD-82 worked almost perfectly. It only missed one track transition when recording Daft Punk âTRONâ vinyl.
(those titles did not have >2s silence in between)
If you connect your recorder to a CD player via S/PDIF, it should record the track markers correctly (unless you switch it off in the recorder settings) even if thereâs no pause in the music at at all. Note, modern optical disc players (like DVD players or BluRay players) often donât send the track markers over S/PDIF anymore but any CD player from the 1980s or 1990s will do it.
Yes! The recorder does such a thing. @Jac has a complete description about this. All nineties digital recorders have this Serial Copy Management SystemâŚ
All DCC recorders implement SCMS. The 3rd generation recorders have a firmware bug that (I think) makes them evaluate the SCMS codes wrong in some cases, for example when handling incoming signals that are not from a CD player. Iâm not exactly sure what the problem is, I donât have the equipment to test it, but if I understand and remember correctly, the SCMS bits are inverted if the source is something other than a CD player (so a DAT recorder would trigger the bug and you might not be able to record from DAT even if the DAT tape is an analog recording, which you SHOULD be able to record). I have a CD that has the copyright bit cleared (probably by mistake), which should make recording and unrestricted copying possible, but without my SCMS defeater, my 730 wonât even make a first-generation copy of that CD.
Itâs pretty easy to get around the SCMS limitations nowadays but even if you canât get an external device to defeat SCMS, it might be possible to hack the recorder itself. I have some ideas but I donât know if or when Iâll get to it. For example the SPDIF receivers can usually be rewired to work in standalone mode so they donât need a microcontroller. Or it might be possible to connect a secondary SPDIF decoder to generate the signals for the I2S bus while the original one is disconnected but still listening to the microprocessor.
Thank you for this interesting conversation. Your answers have provided me with valuable information. As a beginner in DCC, I have a lot to learn. Iâd like to address a question related to the source. Suppose I record music from a platform such as Qobuz. What will the recording quality be, especially if the source file is 24-bit? Will it be recorded in 18-bit at 48 kHz on my Philips 951 (I own a Philips 951)?
Also, is it possible to copy music from an online platform or from my local files on my computer?
The 951 records and plays with 18 bits of precision at whatever sample frequency is offered on the digital input. The least significant bits of each sample will be ignored. The recorder wonât change the sample rate.
You must feed PCM to the recorder, DCC recorders donât understand Dolby Digital or DTS or all that kind of modern rubbish .
The only DCC recorder that can do better is a JVC (20 bits) but itâs extremely rare because it was only available in Japan.
If you record from the analog input, the recorder always records at 44.1 kHz. On the 951, it will use an 18 bit ADC.
Recording your own files is possible if your computer has an SPDIF output. Most computers donât, but itâs possible to get an HDMI splitter that will take the digital audio out of an HDMI port and convert it to SPDIF coax or optical.
I hope that SMCS protection doesnât annoy with that method of spdif for computer audio sources.
Iâm going to do this method using qobuz 24 bit files at most, and when thatâs not possible using 16 bit files.
Thank you very much for your reply jac and for your contribution.
If Iâm not mistaken, with spdif method the metadata like song title, artist, maybe lyrics are put in? I heard that with one method it does kind of that, will I have to enter the title with the remote control manually?
Unfortunately no DCC recorder records title information âon the flyâ, except the dcc175 when itâs controlled by DCC studio. You always have to add the title later on, using the remote control or the front panel. I hope to eventually fix this problem but my projects are progressing very slowly right now.
The good news is that SCMS is usually not a problem.
24 bits are also not a problem: if the incoming SCMS signal is more bits that the recorder supports, the extra bits are simply ignored, which will not have any influence on quality.
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