ProAudio Review - December 2008 - (Page 24)

studio review by Ty Ford Sound Devices 788T 8-Track Digital Audio Recorder The 788T is a very good, totally pro-quality multitrack location recorder packed full of useful features. The Sound Devices 788T is (over)simply described by Sound Devices as “a high-resolution digital audio recorder with time code.” That’s sort of like saying the Hummer H1 is an off-road vehicle. This is a 4-pound, $5,995, feature-rich, 8-track recorder with 160 GB SATA internal drive, rechargeable Li-Ion battery and external power supply/charger. In other words, this is not a pro-sumer hard-drive recorder; this is a very professional audio recorder specifically designed for film and video sound applications. Features The 788T is a second-generation device. Lessons learned from its predecessor, the 744T, have been applied. While viewed as a near-perfect recorder by some, the 744T reduced the range of wireless mic receivers at certain frequencies when packed next to those receivers. That problem has been remedied in the 788T. Also, the rechargeable battery is a lot easier to remove. Although fairly straightforward, I would suggest reading the manual before using it on your first shoot. With the 788T, you can record up to eight tracks with very nice-sounding preamps, line or AES/EBU digital sources to 16- or 24-bit WAV mono or WAV poly files (an interleaved multichannel file format. See http://www.sounddevices.com/notes /recorders/mono-poly/ for details) to the internal HD (up to 2 TB), internal CF card and/or external DVD-RAM drive attached via either the 400 or 800 FireWire ports. Unlike the 744T, there are only seven sample rate choices between 32 kHz and 48.048 F. The 788T generates highly accurate time code and recognizes composite NTSC, PAL, and Tri-level sync. The 788T supports 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 29.97 DF, 30, 30 DF, and 30+ frame rates via a fivepin LEMO connector on the right panel. It can be operated without time code or in free run, record run, free run jam once or 24-hour modes. The 788T also has its own sample clock with PLL circuitry and ignores external word clock, AES clock, and video sync during playback. The left side of the 788T sports four female XLRs, four TA3M, a headphone jack and rotary headphone control. The preamps in the 788T are new to Sound Devices. They are extremely quiet and very nice-sounding. The 788T came with firmware version 1.06 installed. I thought the input limiters sounded a bit grungy, but after downloading and updating the firmware to 1.07, they sounded a lot better. The front panel is very straightforward: eight retractable input gain knobs separated by four toggle switches. Each switch instantly brings up the Input Settings Window, which allows access to each input’s mic/line/digital, phantom power, input gain, high-pass filter (mic only), input limiter, track routing, and polarity settings. In this mode, the audio from the particular input selected will be soloed to the headphones. A separate input delay window allows each input to be digitally delayed in 10th-of-a-millisecond increments up to 30 milliseconds. The rotary control on the right side of the chassis controls the selectable knee positions of the high-pass filter and through the main menus. At the bottom of the input window, a block of letters — LRABCDEF — are used to show track assignment for that particular input — Ty Ford has been writing for Pro Audio Review since issue number one. You can find him at www.tyford.com. 24 ProAudioReview | December 2008 www.proaudioreview.com http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/recorders/mono-poly/ http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/recorders/mono-poly/ http://www.tyford.com http://www.proaudioreview.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - December 2008

ProAudio Review - December 2008 Contents Technically Speaking New Studio Products Opinion: Mastering Matters Review: BIAS Peak Pro XT 6 Review: Zaxcom Fusion ENG Mixer and Multitrack Recorder Review: Sound Devices 788T 8-Track Digital Audio Recorder Review: Universal Audio UAD-2 Solo DSP Accelerator Review: Chandler Limited Germanium Compressor Review: RME ADI-8 QS A/D-D/A Converter Feature: Converters and Clocks: Engineers on Their Choices New Live Products Opinion: From the Road Review: Yamaha IM8 Series Mixing Consoles Review: NTI Digirator DR2 Digital Audio Signal Generator Review: Sencore SoundPro SP495 Audio Consultant Test Set Single Slice

ProAudio Review - December 2008

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