I am looking into purchasing a cheap digital record for the purposes of
running a lapel mic into it and then using this audio as the audio
track for videos. So with that said, I don't expect studio quality
audio, just fairly decent, definately better than a camcorder's audio.
This flash record idea is instead of spending lots of money on a
quality wireless mic. WIth this, I plan on just putting the whole
recorder in the speakers pocket. I am aware of some of the
disadvantages such as not being able to control the recording level,
however, as I mentioned, I am only going for decent quality. I am
specifically looking at the iriver IFP-899 which has a mic input and
has the ability to record MP3's at 44.1khz with a bit rate of 320 kbps
which to me sounds like it would work fine for doing audio recordings
of someone speaking. My question is about the mic input and the type
of mics that would work with it. Someone
(http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=27404) says the mic input
specs are

- DC-Voltage (to power eletret mics) 2,75V at 4.5 kOhms.
- Input impedance: 1.9 kOhms, independent of settings, measured at
1kHz.
- Input 'sensitivity' (measured with record slider at highest gain with
1kHz sine wave): Mic. 9mV rms, Line-in 50mV rms. With this values, the
level indicator is at half hight. At 11mV/61mV distortions are starting
to go over 1%, independent of other settings.
Well, it seemes that a standard microphone is good for the ifp-series
if you intend to sing and maybe scream directly into the mike. To pick
up everyday sound, say a chat or unamplified instruments in some metres
distance, a x5 to x10 amplifier is needed to get an acceptable signal
to noise ratio

I don't know much about input sensitivities, I am looking at using an
electrest condenser clip on mic which list the impedance (at 1000hz to
be 1000 ohms and the sensitivity (at 1000hz) to be -65db. Do you think
this mic would work and provide the iriver with enough signal strength
to make a decent recording?

Any other thoughts on flash players under $200 that may work for this
type of application? I briefly thought about the m-audio microtrack,
but it is a little too expensive and has a few too many bugs for the
cost.

-Andrew V. Romero

The iFP-899 should fit your requirements perfectly, recording
conversation with a lapel mic. It's not as good as the MT, but for the
price it can't be beat. I get very useable SNR in this scenario. Too
bad these little wonders are out of production. I can't find anything
like them since. The only downside to them is they don't have level
meters. What I do is monitor carefully in REC Ready mode (i.e. pause)
and adjust the level for best SNR and minimal clipping.

Thanks for your input. I wasn't aware they are out of production, the
iriver america store has them and it says they are in stock. I haven't
found any locally yet, but have only checked at walmart and best buy.
I don't get why they don't put some meters on the device, even if the
meters have a lot of lag, they would still be pretty useful. To me it
seems like someone could make a pretty cheap wave recorder, that just
records uncompressed wave (44.1khz, 16bit), has a simple line input,
and some very simple meters and it would be like $150. I would like
to have a device like this that just has say 512mb or 1gig of memory,
that would be enough for about 1-2.5 hours of uncompressed wave files.
That would be just perfect. To me it seems like companies are missing
out on a really good product. These would be much better than lugging
a tape deck around, and most people don't require all the features of
the microtrack which is pretty pricey and I still don't like the fact
that it seems like you are paying a lot for preamps which don't even
supply "real" phantom power. If I am paying that much, I want
something I am sure is going to work with anything. I would love a
small device that just takes a line input from a mixer or a mic, has
meters, and records .wav files. It sure doesn't seem like that is too
much to ask for less than $200.

So it sounds like the mic output of your typical lapel clip on mics is
strong enough to feed directly into the iFP-899?

Thanks for the input,
Andrew V. Romero

Hi,
We had a bit of discussion here about a week ago when
someone asked the same question. I'm using an Olympus
WS-320M with great success. If you check Olympus's web
site for this model, there's a good bit of info. If you put the
model number into this group's search engine in Google's
groups page, you can find what I wrote about it that fills in
the gaps from the manufacturer.

I'm happy with mine. Good luck....

Ken in Dallas

Yeah, it's too bad that the iRivers only go up to 320kbps mp3
recording. The good news is that any old cheap electret lapel mic will
work. I've tried no-name Radio Shack, Sony, Griffin mics with no
problems, the little recorder powers them fine. Even without
displaying levels, you can monitor while changing record levels on the
line/mic input! If you can find some in stock somewhere grab one (or
two) while you can.

Ken's Olympus seems pretty good, check his review.

Cheers

One more thing: The MZ-RH910 HiMD recorder comes awfully close to your
requirements (~$200, line/mic inputs, fast level meters with peak
indicators, 1GB capacity). Check Fry's Electronics B&M store if
there's one near you. Much better performance than a little flash or
tape recorder, maybe overkill for voice recording.

I have heard many good things about them too when the topic of recording
comes up. So tell me one thing though, just so I can confirm -- does the
line in function as a mic input (ie. with preamp) by enabling some feature
in the software? Thanks.

--

wrote in message
oups.com...
The iFP-899 should fit your requirements perfectly, recording
conversation with a lapel mic. It's not as good as the MT, but for the
price it can't be beat. I get very useable SNR in this scenario. Too
bad these little wonders are out of production. I can't find anything
like them since. The only downside to them is they don't have level
meters. What I do is monitor carefully in REC Ready mode (i.e. pause)
and adjust the level for best SNR and minimal clipping.

The iriver iFP 800 series does have a software option to select either
mic or line according to the online manual. The manual is sort of
vauge about what exactly this does, but the option is there.

-Andrew V. Romero

bixby wrote:
I have heard many good things about them too when the topic of recording
comes up. So tell me one thing though, just so I can confirm -- does the
line in function as a mic input (ie. with preamp) by enabling some feature
in the software? Thanks.


The relevant menu items look like this:

Enter Menu (long hold of Nav control):
-CONTROL
-LINE-IN-RECORDING-VOLUME -- Level control
-LINE-IN/EXT. MIC --Here's where you can turn on the preamp

You can also select mono or stereo, wide range of sample rates
(11.025kHz to 44.1kHz!), and bit rates (16kbps to 320kbps!) for all
inputs: External mic, built-in mic, FM tuner, and of course line-in.
These little recorders can only directly encode to mp3, though. For
uncompressed WAV pocket-sized recording onto 1GB optical media, the
next recorder up the price line (less than $200) would be Sony's
MZ-RH910 HiMD model.

Does the WS-320m have any type of meters? It is nice that it allows
you to use it as a mas storage device, it sounds like the iriver iFP
may have issues with that (i.e. if firmware is updated to allow the
mass storage device, then line input record decreases from a max of 320
to 96). I will read up on this device and post any questions that I
have.

Thanks
-Andrew V. Romero

I got my wife an iRiver IFP895 to record tutoring sessions, and I'm
startled at how good the recordings are from the built in mic.

I keep meaning to ask, is the mic input on the iFP 800 series a 1/8
jack? I hope they didn't put some really small abnormal input jack on
it.

-Andrew V. Romero

Yes.

wrote:
One more thing: The MZ-RH910 HiMD recorder comes awfully close to your
requirements (~$200, line/mic inputs, fast level meters with peak
indicators, 1GB capacity). Check Fry's Electronics B&M store if
there's one near you. Much better performance than a little flash or
tape recorder, maybe overkill for voice recording.

....that with a Sony ECM-DS70P Stereo Microphone would make a great
little field recorder. That stereo mic and a Sony MZ-N707 was my
bootlegging/scratch recording setup for a while...

wrote:
Does the WS-320m have any type of meters? It is nice that it allows
you to use it as a mas storage device, it sounds like the iriver iFP
may have issues with that (i.e. if firmware is updated to allow the
mass storage device, then line input record decreases from a max of 320
to 96). I will read up on this device and post any questions that I
have.

Thanks
-Andrew V. Romero

The WS-320M has far less storage memory = less audio quality than the
iFP series. It's designed for stereo voice recording. It may be good
enough for you.

The UMS firmware on the iRiver uses FAT filesystem drivers which tax
the little ARM CPU more, which means that rates are artificially capped
to 96kbps to prevent dropouts. How do I know this? When the caps are
removed, the recording starts to stutter. There's just not enough
horsepower under the hood for both 320kbps and FAT. The standard
firmware works great and fast (USB 2.0 transfers) on both Windows XP
and OS X. Some intrepid souls are also busy porting Rockbox to the
iFPs. Should be pretty neat...

Very interesting. So, after reading about the 96k bitrate recording on
the WS320m and the fact that it is more expensive, I decided to go
ahead with the iFP-899 for $129 at the iriver.com store (I can say that
now since I just placed my order). I also wasn' too excited that the
WS320m only records in wma format and not mp3. I was really hoping the
iriver UMS firmware would be able to still record at high rates so I
could use it as a USB flash drive as well since I also need one of
those, but you can't have everything in one device I guess (or at least
not yet). I do find it a little concerning that the iriver.com site
says nothing about that limitation on the UMS firmware, I don't like it
when they change things and don't document them. I look forward to
trying this little device. If it doesn't work out, I will at least
have a decent mp3 player which is something else I had been eyeing for
some time. Thanks for all the help, I will let you know how things
turn out.

-Andrew V. Romero

"matty b." wrote in message
oups.com...

...that with a Sony ECM-DS70P Stereo Microphone would make a great
little field recorder. That stereo mic and a Sony MZ-N707 was my
bootlegging/scratch recording setup for a while...

The ECM-DS70P is a nice little mic. That is exactly the one I was
considering purchasing for use with a mic input. But to be frank, I am
getting very tempted to purchase a Sony MZ-B10. It's a MD with internal
twin speakers and built in mic, recording in high or low sensitivity. It
also has a mic input and a digital/analog line input. It's small, has a
pitch control and buttons like a tape recorder, and its around the price
range of the MZ-RH10. I think for recording lessons, gigs and rehearsals,
this unit is a smart choice.

bixby wrote:
"matty b." wrote in message
oups.com...

...that with a Sony ECM-DS70P Stereo Microphone would make a great
little field recorder. That stereo mic and a Sony MZ-N707 was my
bootlegging/scratch recording setup for a while...

The ECM-DS70P is a nice little mic. That is exactly the one I was
considering purchasing for use with a mic input. But to be frank, I am
getting very tempted to purchase a Sony MZ-B10. It's a MD with internal
twin speakers and built in mic, recording in high or low sensitivity. It
also has a mic input and a digital/analog line input. It's small, has a
pitch control and buttons like a tape recorder, and its around the price
range of the MZ-RH10. I think for recording lessons, gigs and rehearsals,
this unit is a smart choice.

Keep in mind that internal mics could pick up mechanical noises. Also,
the B10 (like the N707) is MD, which is probably going to be
discontinued. The RH10 is HiMD, a different beast entirely, with some
backwards compatibility with legacy MD. HiMD is a brand new format
that allows both uncompressed recording and digital upload, in addition
to doubling as Universal Mass Storage via USB. The RH910, another HiMD
recorder, was much closer to the OP's price point ($180 online), but
probably overkill nevertheless for voice recording.

wrote:
Yeah, it's too bad that the iRivers only go up to 320kbps mp3
recording. The good news is that any old cheap electret lapel mic will
work.

For purposes where a cheap electret is good enough (which are many),
320kbs mp3 is more than good enough too.

--
Anahata
-+- http://www.treewind.co.uk
Home: 01638 720444 Mob: 07976 263827

anahata wrote:

For purposes where a cheap electret is good enough (which are many),
320kbs mp3 is more than good enough too.

Good point!

Thanks for those points, all excellent. I was trying to choose between the
RH10 and the B10, and the thing I liked about the B10 is the speaker and
internal mic. But what still bugs me is that there is no connectivity to a
computer and the idea that it is an older format MD.