I can hear a not so subtle difference at 96K. I would describe it as a deepening and widening of the soundstage. Of course you wont hear it with a thrash band but for music with space around it and nuance it really sounds better.
I think that if you have recorded on a digital medium for a long time (or as the only type of recording) you get used to the sound it has and while you can hear improvements in the sound, they're always based on the digital gear that proceeded it. So its only when you hear a great analog recording that you realise what you're actually missing with a digital recorder. Depth and three dimensionality are what digital lacks when compared to analog and 96K does get you closer. Whether or not you need it is dependant on the work you do. Modern pop/rap/dance types of music will probably benefit least while stuff like jazz/classical/acoustic will benefit the most.
As far as hard drive space goes, 80 gig drives go for what 40 gig drives went for not to long ago, so the extra space doesnt bother me...and its only going to get cheaper and faster.
The great thing is that really great 2" 16 and 24 tracks are going for stupid cheap, so I will finally be able to have both soon. Then the bands that can play their instruments will go to analog, and the bands where I need to 'shine the turd' will go into the workstation. The best of both worlds!

Eric,

2" 2tk? Holy moly - I'm still woundering about 1" - I'm starting to feel like Rip Van Wanker or is it that a missing time thing, yea, thats it, the last thing I saw were those lights, then when I found myself back at home in the lab everything had gone to 192 sampeling and 2" analog and my nose hurts, must be an implant, no, no, wate, thats my nose ring, when did I get that?

Sorry, it's here www.atrservice.com/atr/atr108c.htm and it's a 2" 8-track or 1" 2-track.

it STILL blows me away that those motors can handle the weight of 2"!!!

Eric and H . the problem that these guys have run into is that they are running out of machines to do their mods on. I geuss the demand for what they are doing has outpaced the flow of machines they can purchase.They are looking at the feasability of using some of the other Otari decks like the 1/2 in.8 and 1/4 in.4's to see if they can handle those heads.Between this SACD and masterlink I geuss my $1K dat will be worth 50 cents by next year. :rolleyes:

Vin,

I'm sure Eric is on it here the moters on the deck are the thing that matters most, then azmeth, that is a lot of wieght on those parts. The bias is just resistance and can be upgraded very easily. 2", wow, I gotta check that site out, thanks Eric...

Yeah .I understand that the motors and azimuth are important.The problem is like I said, they are running out of decks to do their thing on . Get it ?

They ant gona run out of decks, twenty years ago every studio had a 2 tk, most had ATR's. A fezability on other decks is fine but there are a lot of 2 tk's out there, not to mention 4 & 8's that could handel it. :p

O.K. H. You go ahead and call these guys and
tell em you know where all these decks are so they can stop spending all their ad money trying to find them. :rolleyes:

P.S. obviously not everyone is getting rid of their big tape machines like people think.

Keyplayer: There's probably something painfully obvious to everyone else that I'm missing. But woudn't it be easier and far more cost effective to just track your data analog in the first place, then transfer your "airy data" to your DAW at 48K or even 96K and just work with the data from there?

In the early days, we budding audiophiles were taught to find the hottest level on a virgin vinyl record and then record that album straight through to tape (preferably Cassette & RTR simultaneously).

We were to then shelve the LP and only play the tape for listening enjoyment. Since the record's sound quality would start to deteriorate after 20 playings. The tape would supposedly go about 5 to 10 years with no ill effect, depending on how much you played it. So you could easily make your LP last a lifetime.

It seems to me that this is pretty much the same thing. All those engineers who pine for that Analog depth and Air should just track that way and then transfer the results to their DAW for mixing, editing, and printing. Then you'd have the 192K sound without the 192K storage requirements. Or am I completely off on this?

I just finished working on a project that was done on the new ProTools HD stuff. We did mix to 1/2" 2-track with Dolby SR then transferred the analog back into PT to create the CD. The transfer retained all of the 'meat' gained from the 1/2"... so YES Key, it does work.