player opinions
Akai DPS-16
Name: George Fantastic
Band: OCD, FSB
Model Year: 2000
Price Paid: $1400
Performance
This 16 track recorder works excellently, however, it lacks the light pipe ADAT connections that would make it practical for professional studio usage. The mic preamps are superior to those on many of it's competition, including Yamaha's 4416AW. Yamaha has the light pipes, but you have to bypass the preamps. The Akai has very nice ad/da convertors. It's easy to use, in a basic sense. The instruction manual was written in Sanskrit, translated to ancient Sumatran and then back into to English, and then retranslated into 5 modern languages before it was printed up and stuck in the box. This makes an excellent demo studio unit, although I run mine in tandem with a regular analog mixer to handle many of the other tasks of signal processing. It's really only a 12 track recorder, because if you are using it at 24 bits, then it only records 12 tracks. At 24/96 it only does 5 or 6 tracks, which is perfect for DVD soundtracks.
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Performance Rating: 10
Sound Quality
It sounds really good, as described above. I've never used the effects, I'm really an analog kind of guy and this new fangled technology intimidates me. LOL. Maybe one day I'll use it to it's full extent.
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Sound Quality Rating: 10
Construction
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I wouldn't drop it, and I haven't so I have no idea if it's rugged. However it's managed to work so far, for a lot of hours running time.
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Construction Rating: 10
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Average Ratings
- Performance: 10
- Sound Quality: 10
- Construction: 10
Ratings Key
- 10: Excellent
- 0: Useless
Company
- Akai