Tascam DM-24
Twenty kilos of motorized faders and a backlit LCD — a digital console that asked for a serious desk and gave back serious routing.
Overview
The first thing that registers about the DM-24 is the weight: 20.5kg (45.1lbs), spread across a chassis measuring 582 x 657 x 198mm including the rest. This is not a desktop toy you tuck beside a laptop — it wants a proper console footprint, and the depth figure tells you why. Behind the 17 motorized faders sits a full digital mixing engine, and the case is sized to hold it.
Those faders are the heart of the machine: 17 x 100mm stroke, motor-driven and touch-sensitive, paired with a backlit 320 x 240 LCD with contrast control and a pair of 12-segment LED meters. Collectors who have owned digital consoles of this generation note that touch-sensitive automation is the dividing line between a mixer that fights you and one that works with you — the DM-24 sits on the right side of that line. The display is modest by modern standards but functional, and the manual's diagnostic routines even include an LCD test that cycles the screen through all-off and all-on states to check for irregularities.
The console covers 32 channels across 8 buses, and the manual documents a serious analog front end. Total harmonic distortion is specified at under 0.1% across 20Hz–20kHz from LINE IN to INSERT SEND, tightening to under 0.013% at 1kHz from LINE IN to STEREO OUTPUT. Frequency response holds 20Hz–25kHz at +0.5dB/–1.5dB on the insert path and 20Hz–20kHz at +0.5dB/–1.0dB to the stereo outputs. Noise figures are quoted with the trim wide open and a 150Ω source: under –128dBu at the insert send, under –68dBu to the balanced stereo output, under –74dBu unbalanced and to the buss/aux outputs. Crosstalk at 1kHz exceeds 80dB on the stereo/buss/aux outputs and 70dB on the monitor outputs. These are the numbers of a console built to sit in a working signal chain, not a budget box with a digital badge.
Connectivity is where the DM-24 earns its keep. Two digital inputs arrive on both XLR (110Ω) and RCA (75Ω) connectors, auto-detecting AES3-1992 or IEC60958, with 24-bit word length and switchable sampling frequency conversion. Digital outputs mirror that arrangement. Three 25-pin D-sub connectors carry TDIF-1, and two Lightpipe optical connectors handle ADAT in and out — 24-bit throughout. Internal sampling runs 44.1kHz and 48kHz, with 88.2kHz and 96kHz available at high sampling frequencies; external sync locks within ±6.0% of the internal rate. Word sync in and out/thru are on BNC with switchable 75Ω termination and TTL levels. MIDI in, out, thru/MTC out sit on three 5-pin DINs, time code in is an RCA jack conforming to SMPTE, and a DTRS remote out rounds out the machine-control side.
The analog I/O is equally complete. Stereo outputs are balanced XLR-3-32 at 100Ω impedance, nominal +4dBu (–16dBFS). Monitor outputs to the control room are balanced 1/4" jacks, nominal +4dBu with the CR VR at max and a maximum output of +20dBu. Studio monitor outputs are unbalanced RCA at –10dBV nominal, +6dBV maximum. Two stereo 1/4" headphone jacks deliver up to 120mW + 120mW into 33Ω. A stereo insert on a TRS jack runs unbalanced with send and return both at –2dBu nominal, the return seeing a 10kΩ input impedance. Two-track in is on RCA at –10dBV nominal into 10kΩ. A DIM switch attenuates the control-room output anywhere from 0 to –40dB, set in the monitor screen.
Period advertising positioned the DM-24 as "the affordable luxury console," and the pitch was that its feature set — flexible routing, fully parametric EQ, machine control, touch-sensitive motorized faders, and a broad spread of audio interfaces — normally lived on super high-end mixers. EQ (May 2002, p.49) ran that same framing, describing a 32-channel 8-bus digital console whose features were usually reserved for far more expensive desks. Pro-Audio-Review (September 2002, p.9) made the sonic argument explicitly, citing 24-bit operation up to 96kHz and the claim that the DM-24 reset the standards for sonic quality at its price. Treat those as the marketing line of the day — but the spec sheet behind them is real, and the interface count backs it up.
Owners should know the maintenance realities. The DM-24 keeps its system data on a backup battery, and the manual is blunt about the failure mode: when that battery's voltage drops, the console can't save its settings, and the fix is to check the Battery Check reading under the OPTION screen's PREFERENCES sub-screen and replace the cell if the "Can't Save DM-24 System Data" message blinks. There's also a +5V rail that, if it sags, triggers a "Please Restart DM-24" prompt — the manual points service techs at U3 on the main PCB and the soldering around its pin 8, R3, R52, and pin 76 of the CPU. SRAM can fall out of range and require initialization, which wipes all setting data except the library (that lives on flash ROM and survives). None of this is exotic, but it means a used DM-24 deserves a battery check and a look at the power supply before it goes into a session.
Power draw is a modest 82W, with a peak inrush current of 8A, and the unit was built for 120VAC/60Hz, 230VAC/50Hz, or 240VAC/50Hz depending on region. The manual's diagnostic menu includes communication tests that loop MIDI and RS422 data internally to verify the ports, plus a flash-ROM information clear routine that the documentation insists should only be run when the flash ROM is actually replaced — a caution worth heeding, since it clears the write-count record stored in SRAM.
For a studio built around TDIF or ADAT hardware, the DM-24 remains a coherent hub: three TDIF ports and two Lightpipe ports give it a lot of ways to talk to recorders and interfaces, and the motorized touch-sensitive faders make automation practical rather than theoretical. It is heavy, it wants desk space, and it has the usual digital-console housekeeping to stay on top of. But the routing flexibility and the interface count are exactly what the period advertising promised, and the measured performance holds up as a working console rather than a compromise.
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