Sony PCM-R700
Sony PCM-R500
(1997 - 2002)

Sony's ultimate professional Digital Audio Tape (DAT) recorders.
Inheriting some mechanical parts from previous units such as the DTC-2000ES or even the DTC-1000ES / PCM-2500 ancesters.
The R700 is a 4-head design ; the R500 a simpler 2-Head ; the a/d conversion on both is of the "Delta-Sigma" type with 24bit resolution ; d/a conversion is 1bit Pulse with 20bit resolution. The R700 has its tape/monitor switch located left, under the remote selector ; the R700 and R500 are otherwise visually identical.
The efficient SBM (Super Bit Mapping) is here, just like fully professional features like sync and sync level offsets, frame-accurate search or even automatic Q codes marking (Q IDs are the track start IDs on CDs).