JoeCo, the Cambridge-based company whose Black Box Recorder took the live recording world by storm last year, have announced that the BBR 1A (the digital-input version of the same device) is now shipping.
Like all of its BBR brethren, it can record 24 tracks (at up to 96kHz) to an external USB hard-disk drive, but in addition to the innovative way the original BBR 1 handled its 
I/O (via TRS plugs that connect to a mixer’s insert points, thus carrying both inputs and outputs on one cable), the BBR 1A duplicates the analogue connections via six ADAT lightpipe sockets, eliminating a stage of A-D/D-A conversion when used with digital mixers. The ADAT protocol does, of course, limit the sample rate of digital recordings to 48kHz, although the BBR 1A can run in S-MUX mode, which allows for 12 inputs and outputs at 96kHz. JoeCo also say that they will soon be releasing an AES/EBU version of the Black Box, which will permit 24-channel recording at 96kHz. The AES/EBU version should be shipping around August, while the ADAT version is available to buy now.
