For this evaluation, I purchased a Kimber Kable GQ mini silver & copper hyrbid cable. It is normally sold as an iPod cable, with a 1/8 mini jack at one end and phono plugs at the other.In this case I upgraded to the WBT-044, which are super German made connectors.  I connected everything up, adjusted levels, selected 96 Khz, 24 bit quality, did some testing to find the peaks, and hit record. I also used the built in limiter, which prevents the incoming signal from red lining the meter. The first piece I dubbed was a recording of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by George Szell. This performance, recorded specifically for FM broadcast in 1967, has probably not been heard since, although Szell released a commercial recording of the piece on Columbia records. When I listened back I was utterly astonished at how the Roland captured the relaxed, analog sound of the tape. It had preserved the soul of the performance, and was a massive leap over my earlier results when going to 44.1 Khz and 16 bit with the CD-R deck.

I transferred 3 more reels of tape and was thrilled with the results each and every time. But that was just the beginning. The R-09HR has on board editing capability that allows you to split, join, and move the WAV files. While very handy, I preferred to transfer the data to my Mac Mini and edit with Audacity, a shareware program available for download and commonly used by amateur audio enthusiasts. After splitting the tracks, naming the files, and exporting the final “masters” to my external hard drives, I listened back using my Logitech Squeezebox as the interface through my CIA VDA-2 24 bit DAC, which I reviewed here, (LINK) and was extremely  pleased with the final results. To pass the final product along to friend, I was able to down sample to 44.1/16 bit with iTunes. I must comment that converting down from 96 khz/24 bit sounds much better than a native 44.1/16 bit recording. It’s a bit like shrinking a picture down packed with megapixels as opposed to creating a low resolution version of something that already was compromised.

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Dave   |2010-11-21 19:43:59 Hi, Tried to find more info (tech specs) on the R-09HR but it is not listed on their website. Do you have a link? Dave 0   0

Andre Marc  - Hi Dave...   |2010-11-22 16:00:22 There is a specifications tab included above. Just click it to see specs. 0   0

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