Abstract: A data compression circuit is provided for a digital audio tape recorder for converting an analog audio signal of standard 16 bit data to compressed 12 bit data when the recorder is in four-channel or long play operation mode. The compression circuit can compress standard data to be recorded with a sampling frequency of 48 KHz and a quantization of 16 bits in long play mode resulting in a compressed data recording in which sampling frequency is 32 KHz and the quantization is 12 bits. Thus, recording the compressed data occurs about twice as fast as recording standard data. Moreover, since the overall amount of recorded data is reduced owing to 12-bit linear compression, channel expansion on the tape is provided.