Digital audio tape

Digital audio tape (DAT) is magnetic recording tape on which the binary digital data is recorded. Digital recording gives better fidelity than analog recording.  The difference in between DAT and conventional analog audio tape is similar to the improvement afforded by digital CD over vinyl audio disk.

In digital audio recording, tape noise can be removed. This is because such noise is analog in nature, and is thus ignored by digital sound reproduction equipment. Some of the electronic noise can be generated in analog amplification stages following D/A conversion, but this is minimal compared with noise generated in older, fully analog systems. The reduced noise in DAT equipment gives more true-to-life reproduction than is possible with the analog methods.

Another advantage of DAT is unlimited copiability. The reason for this is same as the reason for a computer can repeatedly read and overwrite data on the magnetic disk. On DAT, the impulses are defined: high and low states (logic ones and zeros) are represented by the distinct magnetized regions on the tape. While analog signals are fuzzy in sense that they vary continuously, digital signals are crisp. Imperfections in recording apparatus, tape itself, and pickup head affect digital signals less than they affect analog signals. Digital signal processing (DSP) can remove the minute flaws which creep into the digital signal each time it can be recorded and played back. Therefore, you can make copies of copies of DAT recordings, and fidelity will not deteriorate to any noticeable extent after dozens of generations