As we all know, a lot has been spoken about modifying hifi equipment, with various results…
Now DCC recorders sound excellent but my question is could there be somethings done to make it really awesome? What would you change? Separate power to analogue/digital/transport… and if you think yes, how would you do so, and which deck would you prefer?
It is just a curveball… bring in your thoughts…
Think out of the box, let the creativity flow…
What would YOU do to make DCC even better than it allready is?
First, I am no electronics specialist.
I have briefly looked into this a couple of years ago and found little. If I recall correctly forum posts suggested improving the PSU, rebuilding or replacing the oscillator part (Clock), that sort of stuff. And maybe some improvement on the analogue side as well.
Modifications and improvements to DCC recorders. Ah, my favorite subject! I have a lot of ideas about this, and not enough time. So I’m working on some of these while others have been going around in my head for a while. For brevity, I’ll ignore how difficult these would be (feel free to ask), but all are possible, at least theoretically, given the information that we already have.
As for sound quality:
24 bit encoding and decoding of PASC/MP1
Using other formats of audio compression instead of PASC/MP1, e.g. MP3
As for user-friendliness:
Replace the display on DCC730/951 with one that has a VU meter
Make it possible to enter song titles on DCC730/951 using a regular keyboard
Record from digital sources that user other encodings than PCM, and circumvent silly SCMS limitations
Process incoming metadata such as CD-Text and ITTS and record it onto DCC on-the-fly
Use USB to transfer digital audio to/from a computer
As for archival
Decode ITTS from prerecorded DCC’s to a video output
Generate digital dumps of DCC cassettes (including ITTS information) onto built-in storage (SD card) or to a computer using USB
Format cassettes as prerecorded cassettes including ITTS
Make it possible to read and write song titles on first and second generation decks
For my average ears, DCC is really perfect for me. Few days ago, I made a sound comparison with the same album on CD and I haven’t hear any difference. (OK, I didn’t use the AB/X protocol.)
If the DCC would had to be updated, it would be for the functionalities, like the ones Jack described.
From my user point of view, the thing I’d like to see is having the DCC tape with a kind of SD card included, this way you could listen to the tape on your recorder and you could have the same album as well on the card, but in very high quality files (e.g: FLAC or ALAC).
I think this would be easy to do it, even I guess it would only apply with new releases or refurbished DCC albums.
I build a print circuit board from the elektuur mid 90’s, to lose the SCMS signal. Works perfect on the DCC730, DCC951 and DAT850 from Philips. Also led’s on the pcb for checking the 32K, 44K or 48K sampling rate.