SONOSAX STELLADAT II - Manual (Page 4)

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1. Introduction & QuickStart
Your Stelladat II digital recorder has been designed to assure you many years of irreproachable
performances. Stelladat II's reliability is due as much to its solid mechanical engineering as to a
meticulous manual assembling of selected electronic components. The updatable software
management of the device's main elements allows you the use of sophisticated functions,
unthinkable until now on a recorder of that size, and guarantees you always access to the most
recent developments.
Stelladat II, portable DAT recorder, unique on the market offering you the choice of 2 and 4
tracks, features extremely advanced engineering and characteristics.
Stelladat II includes four mic/line inputs, all outfitted with legendary SONOSAX mic preamplifiers,
input gain control, limiters, low pass filters, pan pots and output level controls. These four inputs
can be routed towards two or four tracks, with or without panpot, depending on the application.
Stelladat II has a true 4 channels input mixer. Included is a tone generator, a slate microphone
and a control loudspeaker. To also maintain the reliability under difficult temperature or humidity
conditions, the recorder contains a tape scanner heater switching on automatically when
circumstances require it.
Stelladat II records and plays back at 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz (and at 96 kHz on option). It can also
use pull-up and pull-down sample frequencies (+0.1% and -0.1% ) to meet the requirements of
NTSC video.
While Time Code DAT machines have become notorious for their frequency instability, (Time
Code drift of 20 ppm is typical), Stelladat II is as stable as its Swiss analog predecessors (Time
Code drift < 2 PPM, typically < 1 PPM), and offers an optional High Stability (oven stabilized)
crystal providing frequency stability better that 0.1 PPM.
Unique circuit design allows Stelladat II to achieve unheard of power efficiency in a DAT
recorder. Stelladat II uses only 10 to 15 watts, depending on the configuration. The power saving
software allows you to power off the analog inputs one by one, the optical inputs and outputs and
the analog outputs. Power requirements in stand by are considerably lowered allowing many
hours of typical production from a single NP-1 battery.
Stelladat II has been designed and manufactured to meet the highest standards of reliability to
operate under very rugged conditions. If service should be required, its modular design allows
any module to be removed and replaced with one single 2 mm hex wrench.
Although Stelladat II has been particularly sturdily constructed and all precautions have been
taken to avoid any damage caused by incorrect use, we advise you to invest some of your time to
carefully read this user manual.
That being said, Stelladat II is not a complicated recorder and if you don't find the time to read
this user manual before your first recording, you most certainly will achieve to use it. Its basic
functionalities are very similar to these of other well known analog portable recorders.
Before recording
If you are in a hurry, before you go on to your first recording session with your new recorder, just
read these few fundamental, little restricting rules for an optimal and comfortable use of Stelladat
II's resources:
• Never attempt to carry any hardware modification or to take apart any module before
having studied the manual.
• Never try to touch or clean the tape scanner with any object. The 4 heads inside the
drum are very fragile and can be easily damaged. Operations on these elements can only
be executed by authorized service centers.
• To clean the heads, use a cleaning cassette (Ex.: SONY DT-10 CL or similar) and read
carefully the instructions enclosed with it. We recommend playing back the cleaning