ADAT converters- how good are they?

[sleepy]

Hey there, I will soon be getting my first ADAT recorder! I'm wondering if the 20 bit converters on the ADAT will be good enough for recording a quality analogue to digital production. (using neumann mics and UA-m610 preamp and other pro rack gear)

Just how good are the Alesis ADAT 20 bit converters when it comes to recording via analogue ins? Is 64 times oversampling as good as it gets?
Can anyone out there offer some experience?

[David Klausner]

Bit depth is a measure of low level resolution. You are doing really, really well in your studio if you are able to get even 20 bits worth of resolution over the noise floor of your mics, pre's and the room itself, so 20 bits are plenty to represent the actual audio information you are capturing. 24 bits basically gives you additional headroom, so that you don't have to be pushing 0 dB quite as closely to maintain your resolution.

While there are certainly better sounding converters out there these days, there is nothing wrong with the converters on the 20 bit ADATs, and lots of records have been made with converters that weren't as good. Alanis Morissette's first album, Jagged Little Pill, was done on 16 bit ADATs, and the 14 million people who bought it didn't seem to complain. (BTW, the follow-up was done on 20 bit ADATs)

Perhaps the better question is whether the advantages of ADATs - removable storage medium, easy compatibility and track exchange, ease of use, etc., outweigh the advantages of other systems such as hard disc - more tracks, non linear recording, editing, fewer moving parts, etc.

[sleepy]

Thanks David for the response, yeah basically I'm planning to feed the tracks from ADAT to my AMD PC. Because of my VIA chipset and k7 motherboard it won't be compadible with ADAT edit.( at least this is what Alesis told me) so in the mean time I've got a digital S/PDIF in and out on my granddaddy of a soundcard- two years old. But even as I update the system, G4 or better( thinking of the future always), I think the ADAT will be always a welcome piece o' machinery.

Storage on disc kind of scares me.I've had a little bad luck twice with saving in this non-linear format and thats 2 times too many. There's wonderful things going on right now with the G4's but I'm gonna sit on my AMD until prices drop. We all know the computer discount fairy will be paying us many visits. But it's very interesting how the neumann U87's and Avalons are keeping their value.

I'll take a listen to that Alanis Morissette CD, I think I've got a copy kickin around - cheers!