Marantz DD-92
Marantz DD-82
(1992 - 1996)

MiniDisc didn't fail, ELCASET didn't fail, DAT didn't fail, Laserdisc finally didn't but DCC... here is a truly failed format.
Sadly, DCC failed to succeed although it did comply to what once was a marketing imperative: backward compatibility. The astronomical amount of tapes bought or recorded since 1963 could replayed in a DCC machine. With the added benefit of digital recording, that was to be DCC's key feature. Surprisingly, and preceding JVC's D-VHS... it didn't work.

With a smaller number of heads, DCC more or less complied with old prototypes from Grundig, Optonica and even Sony's professional DASH (DASH means Digital Audio Stationary Head). Like the latter, DCC belongs to the S-DAT type: Stationary Head (vs. R-DAT, R for Rotary). With a sound quality far better than MiniDisc's original argh and backward compatibility assured for all users of Philips' Compact Cassette (ie. everybody on planet earth), DCC had absolutely everything to win. Philips had even planned to release portable DCC recorders which could be plugged to exchange files with computers ! As we all know, that was the market's no so distant future. If Sony took quite some time to get MiniDisc there, it seems Philips got cold feet and made the DCC-175 only available in its home country... Philips by 1992 was in financially very bad shape and started a spiral of rushed decisions. DCC suffered from very bad marketing, too, even if heavyweight Matsushita backed the format - exit DCC.

The Marantz DD-92 is the ultimate DCC recorder (timeframe-wise and quality-wise), equivalent to the Philips DCC-951. The DD-82 only differs by its color and absence of diescast sideburns. Changed from the first generation were the d/a section and the welcome addition of title text recording. Said d/a is no less than the revered DAC-7 BitStream, here with 18bit resolution. The looks of the DD-92 fall within the then-current Marantz CD players (CD-10) or Philips' Japan-only LHH line - not exactly beautiful nor coherent, especially in black.
P.A.S.C., Precision Adaptive Sub Coding, DCC's compression format was excellent and the rest is like any other... DAT deck ;-)

A review of the DD-82 here ; an accurate technical description here ; a useful resource website and another one.

The images here come from 1992/93, 1993/94 and 1994/95 japanese and german Marantz catalogs unfortunately all badly printed - a staple of Marantz I must say.