Hi, all,

With all the iPods and other HD recorders out there, you'd think that one of
them would have tumbled to the idea that you could also do decent recordings
from a mic using one of their units. But from what I can tell, they use
4kHz sampling rates, low bit rates, etc.

There are some minidisk recorders out there that have mini plugs for
microphones, and apparently have a better quality that they record at.

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

George Reiswig
Song of the River Music

With all the iPods and other HD recorders out there, you'd think
that one of them would have tumbled to the idea that you could
also do decent recordings from a mic using one of their units.
But from what I can tell, they use 4kHz sampling rates, low bit
rates, etc.

Not at all. The iRiver HD units can record from an external mic in stereo at the
standard 16/44.1 rate. Their principal limitation is that, although the gain is
adjustable, there is no display to help you set the level, and the mic preamp
might not have enough gain for recording string quartets or other "quiet" music.

"A. & G. Reiswig" wrote:


With all the iPods and other HD recorders out there, you'd think that one of
them would have tumbled to the idea that you could also do decent recordings
from a mic using one of their units.

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?


Well, I just returned from 11 days in China recording
Beethoven, Vaughan-Williams, Wagner, Bizet, Mozart, and
other oldies with a Marantz PMD670 with a 1 Gb CF chip.

Sounds absolutely fine. Too bad the concert halls and the
sound systems/"engineers" weren't up to the task. Other than
the cell phones ringing in the audience(s), people taking
calls and talking during the performances, and sound system
howls, squeals, general overamplification to a near
unbearable level, and the nearly unbreathable air,
everything was great.

Check out the PMD670. For about $800 (($700 for the machine
plus $100 for the chip (actually $89 at Fry's with a $20
rebate))), you get a nice, usable solution if your problem
is one that it will solve.



T. Maki
Riverside, CA

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:54:38 -0700, T Maki wrote:

Other than
the cell phones ringing in the audience(s), people taking
calls and talking during the performances, and sound system
howls, squeals, general overamplification to a near
unbearable level, and the nearly unbreathable air,
everything was great.

Gee it sounds like a wonderful experience all around!

Al

A. & G. Reiswig wrote:

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

Have a look at Sony's Hi-MD. The full scoop can be found at

http://www.minidisc.org

It has pre amps (which have not been characterized yet by
anyone so far as I know) does 44.1 kHz, can handle optical
digital in and record to either their latest ATRAC
compression (which hasn't fared too well at all against the
competing codecs in listening tests) or, more interestingly,
to 16 bit PCM. The recordings can be uploaded at high speed
but they are encapsulated in a proprietary format and
currently the only thing you can do is play an encapsulated
PCM file with their app. There is a hack at the above site
that claims to be able to reencapsulate them to .wav format
and Sony has quietly announced their intention to ship a
utility this fall that does the same. The medium holds
about a gigabyte.

There are other solutions coming down the pike from Tascam
and I think from Yamaha that use CF media but they aren't
here yet. If you don't need pre-amps there is also the
iRiver line of HD recorders. Hard drives packaged so close
to analog recording circuitry are problematic due to the
high di/dt noise they generate. You won't find a HD unit
with real pre-amps for this reason and even the line in
devices have noise well above -96 dBFS.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

Human imagination is insufficient to comprehend the totality
of the experience, both in terms of the musical experience -
which, for the group, was quite a success - and the
environmental factors of the Chinese reality. If I were to
relate some of what I experienced, you would insist that I
was making it up. My own imagination is insufficient to
construct such things.

Although lunch at the rotating observation deck of the
Tianjin radio and television broadcasting tower (the 7th
tallest in the world at the time they made that boast) was
quite pleasant.

Although I saw Allen & Heath (GL series) and Behringer
(MX9000) mixing consoles, Toa and Cerwin-Vega speakers, it
is my impression that the technical people I encountered are
(understandably) unfamiliar with Western music and how it
should be mic'd and amplified. Even though I was not
responsible for setting up the stage and mixing the shows, I
did have to reposition a number of mics in all venues and
even tried to communicate proper levels, etc. which I was
told afterward were virtually ignored.

And don't get me started on the food and sanitary
facilities.

For the world's sake, I pray that things change by 2008 -
and more than just on the surface.



TM


playon wrote:

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:54:38 -0700, T Maki wrote:

Other than
the cell phones ringing in the audience(s), people taking
calls and talking during the performances, and sound system
howls, squeals, general overamplification to a near
unbearable level, and the nearly unbreathable air,
everything was great.

Gee it sounds like a wonderful experience all around!

Al

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 21:04:32 -0700, T Maki wrote:

Human imagination is insufficient to comprehend the totality
of the experience, both in terms of the musical experience -
which, for the group, was quite a success - and the
environmental factors of the Chinese reality. If I were to
relate some of what I experienced, you would insist that I
was making it up. My own imagination is insufficient to
construct such things.

Actually I'd love to hear the stories... feel free to email me
if you don't want to post it here. I've been to
China a couple of times, it's an overwhelming & fascinating place for
a westerner. What kind of gig where you doing? I heard that Elton
John gave a few concerts over there and wasn't too happy about things.

And don't get me started on the food and sanitary
facilities.

It is always wise to carry your own toilet paper in China...
there is a lot of room for improvement, but compared to even 10 years
ago it's amazing how far they have come. If you were in Tianjin I
would guess it wouldn't be as modernized as Beijing or Shanghai.
Personally I liked the food, it was pretty great in most places, fresh
and unbelievably varied. But when it's bad it's *really* bad. I'm
fairly adventurous but didn't go for the scorpion, pig's blood, or
pickled snake -- maybe next time :^0

For the world's sake, I pray that things change by 2008 -
and more than just on the surface.

I can't see the party giving up control anytime soon... most of the
changes will probably be superficial.

Al

playon wrote:

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 17:54:38 -0700, T Maki wrote:

Other than
the cell phones ringing in the audience(s), people taking
calls and talking during the performances, and sound system
howls, squeals, general overamplification to a near
unbearable level, and the nearly unbreathable air,
everything was great.

Gee it sounds like a wonderful experience all around!

Al

In article MiFad.3545$j15.444@trnddc07 writes:

With all the iPods and other HD recorders out there, you'd think that one of
them would have tumbled to the idea that you could also do decent recordings
from a mic using one of their units.

Yeah, you'd think so, but the reality is that most of the people who
buy this sort of stuff aren't interested in live recording. They'd
rather just download music that someone else has recorded.

There are some minidisk recorders out there that have mini plugs for
microphones, and apparently have a better quality that they record at.

There are a few decent recorders out there that would (and do) serve
for the "serious casual" recordist. The worst part of all of them is
the mini phone jack.

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

A crystal ball. The trend seems to be toward solid state memory which,
until the prices come down to what we've learned to pay for mechanical
recording media, will pretty much be "fixed media" - that is, you own
one memory card, you record on it, and when it's full, you dump the
memory to another medium before you can record more. PITA, I think.
NOt a big deal if you record a couple of shows a month - you can
probably find a few minutes to set up a transfer, let it run, label
the CDs or DVDs, and store them. But if you're working every day,
that's not a good way to go.

I saw a brochure on a new Edirol compact flash card recorder (still
has the damn mini jack) and they say that there will be a more
professoinal hard drive based one coming, perhaps to an AES show very
soon. The Core Sound PDA audio interface is kind of a neat idea, but
it needs an outboard mic preamp (which Core Sound also makes, and it's
a pretty good one) and that's too many pieces for me to want to trust.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

A. & G. Reiswig wrote:

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

Sound Devices 722

--
ha

Thanks, everyone for the great input. It looks like there are really good
solutions out there, but they are cost prohibitive. The Hi-MD stuff may be
the simplest solution near-term, but one wonders about the kind of
microphone you get when you buy a Sony ECM-MS907 Mic to go with it...at
least they use OFC cable!!! ;-)

"Church Audio" (an EBay-only store, I gather) has some alternatives for
external preamps and microphones, but again...one wonders.

George Reiswig
Song of the River Music
"Bob Cain" wrote in message
...


A. & G. Reiswig wrote:

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

Have a look at Sony's Hi-MD. The full scoop can be found at

http://www.minidisc.org

It has pre amps (which have not been characterized yet by anyone so far as
I know) does 44.1 kHz, can handle optical digital in and record to either
their latest ATRAC compression (which hasn't fared too well at all against
the competing codecs in listening tests) or, more interestingly, to 16 bit
PCM. The recordings can be uploaded at high speed but they are
encapsulated in a proprietary format and currently the only thing you can
do is play an encapsulated PCM file with their app. There is a hack at
the above site that claims to be able to reencapsulate them to .wav format
and Sony has quietly announced their intention to ship a utility this fall
that does the same. The medium holds about a gigabyte.

There are other solutions coming down the pike from Tascam and I think
from Yamaha that use CF media but they aren't here yet. If you don't need
pre-amps there is also the iRiver line of HD recorders. Hard drives
packaged so close to analog recording circuitry are problematic due to the
high di/dt noise they generate. You won't find a HD unit with real
pre-amps for this reason and even the line in devices have noise well
above -96 dBFS.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler."

A. Einstein

T Maki wrote:

If I were to relate some of what I experienced, you would insist
that I was making it up. My own imagination is insufficient to
construct such things.

My wife is (among other things) a novelist. Before her first novel
was published, she was a student in several fiction writing workshops.
Her habit is to mix real life stories in with her fiction, and when
other students would critique her work, they would INVARIABLY pick out
something that came from real life to criticize by saying, "That's just
not credible--it would never happen in real life." I mean, INVARIABLY.

I for one would love to read what you experienced, though it belongs in
its own thread under a different title. Please consider writing it
down and posting it here, or in some other appropriate place--and in
the latter case, please let us know where you've posted it.

--best regards

(This may be a duplicate posting due to a Google server error; if so,
please pardon.)

Well, I might just do that. Gotta decompress a little, and
get caught up on this end.

At least the Airbus 340-600 is a nice ride there and
back...It's about the only thing that didn't go wrong. Oh,
wait - a three-hour delay at LAX outbound, and a one-hour
delay after landing inbound because China Eastern didn't
have a jetway available for de-planing (but that's not the
airplane's fault).

Amazingly enough, not once did either my bags or gear get
examined - not even questioned. Before leaving, I stopped at
customs and got a registration certificate to get the gear
back in without hassle. Never needed it.

A member of the group (this was a collection of over 100
musicians - orchestra and chorus, many Local 47, and many
from other parts of the country, Australia and Canada) is
putting together a Web site with pix from everybody. It'll
take a little while for that to be completed, and I'll see
if there is anything appropriate to be shared.



TM

David Satz wrote:

I for one would love to read what you experienced, though it belongs in
its own thread under a different title. Please consider writing it
down and posting it here, or in some other appropriate place--and in
the latter case, please let us know where you've posted it.

David Satz wrote:

I for one would love to read what you experienced, though it belongs in
its own thread under a different title. Please consider writing it
down and posting it here, or in some other appropriate place--and in
the latter case, please let us know where you've posted it.

What he said! Let our imaginations be stretched.

--
ha

"T Maki" wrote in message ...
Well, I might just do that. Gotta decompress a little, and
get caught up on this end.

At least the Airbus 340-600 is a nice ride there and
back...It's about the only thing that didn't go wrong. Oh,
wait - a three-hour delay at LAX outbound, and a one-hour
delay after landing inbound because China Eastern didn't
have a jetway available for de-planing (but that's not the
airplane's fault).

Where did you fly into?

Glenn D.

Bob Cain wrote:

Hard
drives packaged so close to analog recording circuitry are problematic
due to the high di/dt noise they generate. You won't find a HD unit
with real pre-amps for this reason and even the line in devices have
noise well above -96 dBFS.

Unless you spend over $2k and buy a professional HD recorder. Until Q1 2005, you actually have to spend over $3500.

Mike Rivers wrote:

There are a few decent recorders out there that would (and do) serve
for the "serious casual" recordist. The worst part of all of them is
the mini phone jack.

Having recently reattached one of those in a NJB3, I can heartily agree.

A. & G. Reiswig wrote:

"Church Audio" (an EBay-only store, I gather) has some alternatives for
external preamps and microphones, but again...one wonders.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/ has a fairly wide array of affordable choices.

Shanghai at night, then on to Beijing. I was surprised how
dark their cities are at night. Having flown into many of
our major metropolitan airports (LAX, JFK, DFW, etc.) I was
expecting a real light show, especially into a city of 32
million people (SHA). Quite a disappointment. Even on the
ground , the cities are quite dark at night.



TM

Glenn Dowdy wrote:

"T Maki" wrote in message ...
Well, I might just do that. Gotta decompress a little, and
get caught up on this end.

At least the Airbus 340-600 is a nice ride there and
back...It's about the only thing that didn't go wrong. Oh,
wait - a three-hour delay at LAX outbound, and a one-hour
delay after landing inbound because China Eastern didn't
have a jetway available for de-planing (but that's not the
airplane's fault).

Where did you fly into?

Glenn D.

"T Maki" wrote in message ...
Shanghai at night, then on to Beijing.

So PVG, then?

I was surprised how
dark their cities are at night. Having flown into many of
our major metropolitan airports (LAX, JFK, DFW, etc.) I was
expecting a real light show, especially into a city of 32
million people (SHA). Quite a disappointment. Even on the
ground , the cities are quite dark at night.

Downtown Shanhai was certainly lit up when I was there last month.

Glenn D.

"A. & G. Reiswig" wrote in message news:MiFad.3545$j15.444@trnddc07...
Hi, all,

With all the iPods and other HD recorders out there, you'd think that one of
them would have tumbled to the idea that you could also do decent recordings
from a mic using one of their units. But from what I can tell, they use
4kHz sampling rates, low bit rates, etc.

There are some minidisk recorders out there that have mini plugs for
microphones, and apparently have a better quality that they record at.

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

George Reiswig
Song of the River Music


Check out: http://www.core-sound.com/comparison...-670-fr-2.html

The recorders might not be as small as you want... but this is a great
place to do some homework on the PDAudio, Marantz and Fostex portable
units.

Mike Rivers wrote:

I saw a brochure on a new Edirol compact flash card recorder (still
has the damn mini jack)

http://edirol.com/products/info/r1.html
Looks like there's no digital input.



they say that there will be a more professional
hard drive based one coming, perhaps to an AES show very soon.

Sounds interesting.

In article writes:

The worst part of all of them is
the mini phone jack.

Having recently reattached one of those in a NJB3, I can heartily agree.

Don't scare me like that.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:

kurt writes:

The worst part of all of them is the mini phone jack.

Having recently reattached one of those in a NJB3, I can heartily agree.

Don't scare me like that.

You've got glasses. Mind you, the NJB weasn't just sitting there and the
jack fell out... g

--
ha

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:53:32 -0700, T Maki wrote:

Shanghai at night, then on to Beijing. I was surprised how
dark their cities are at night. Having flown into many of
our major metropolitan airports (LAX, JFK, DFW, etc.) I was
expecting a real light show, especially into a city of 32
million people (SHA). Quite a disappointment. Even on the
ground , the cities are quite dark at night.

There is a hell of a lot less crime, (and nightlife) so they probably
don't feel the need for as much lighting at night.

Al




TM

Glenn Dowdy wrote:

"T Maki" wrote in message ...
Well, I might just do that. Gotta decompress a little, and
get caught up on this end.

At least the Airbus 340-600 is a nice ride there and
back...It's about the only thing that didn't go wrong. Oh,
wait - a three-hour delay at LAX outbound, and a one-hour
delay after landing inbound because China Eastern didn't
have a jetway available for de-planing (but that's not the
airplane's fault).

Where did you fly into?

Glenn D.

A. & G. Reiswig wrote:

Thanks, everyone for the great input. It looks like there are really good
solutions out there, but they are cost prohibitive. The Hi-MD stuff may be
the simplest solution near-term, but one wonders about the kind of
microphone you get when you buy a Sony ECM-MS907 Mic to go with it...at
least they use OFC cable!!! ;-)

Hey, that's a great little mic if it is properly
compensated. I did anechoic impulse response measurements
on it to calculate appropriate compensating FIR's (magnitude
and phase) and the little thing became a monster. I'd use
it for damn near anything. Its -45 dB sensitivity does
flirt with the noise floor of a lot of pre-amps on quiet
stuff like classical guitar, however.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

In article writes:

http://edirol.com/products/info/r1.html
Looks like there's no digital input.

Not that I can tell, but it has not one, but two built in mics for
stereo. There's an optical digital output - sharing the headphone
output mini jack. Like I've been saying, not enough people are
interested in recording to make a reorder that records well. I also
notice that recording time is only an hour on alkaline batteries,
though playback time is 5.5 hours. It must take a lot of oomph to
write to that flash card memory.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Highly-portable good recorders?

Group: rec.audio.pro Date: Tue, Oct 12, 2004, 2:56pm (EDT+4) From:
(hank=A0alrich)
A. & G. Reiswig wrote:
But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?


Sound Devices 722

An excellent choice but at $2600 perhaps a bit over budget for the OP
requirements and it won't be available for at least 2-3 months.

Eric

Bob Cain writes:

a Sony ECM-MS907

Hey, that's a great little mic if it is properly
compensated. I did anechoic impulse response measurements
on it to calculate appropriate compensating FIR's (magnitude
and phase) and the little thing became a monster. I'd use
it for damn near anything.

But does it SOUND good? It's been quite some time since I tried a Sony
single point stereo mic, but the one I tried (ECM-909 or something
like that, but then they're all something like that) sounded pretty
plastic, kind of like what electrets used to sound like when we could
only afford them but would really have preferred something else.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"A. & G. Reiswig" wrote:

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder
that had pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than
the typical DAT or cassette recorder, what would you look at?

Fostex FR-2, several people I know are happy with theirs.

George Reiswig


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

T Maki wrote in message ...
Shanghai at night, then on to Beijing. I was surprised how
dark their cities are at night. Having flown into many of

Have a look at the earth at night, for instance at:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2_dmsp_big.jpg

Shanghai looks pretty bright!

"Emanuel Zorg" wrote in message
om...
T Maki wrote in message ...
Shanghai at night, then on to Beijing. I was surprised how
dark their cities are at night. Having flown into many of

Have a look at the earth at night, for instance at:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...2_dmsp_big.jpg

Shanghai looks pretty bright!

Pudong Airport is far enough away from downtown Shanghai to have anyone
arriving wonder where the lights are.

Glenn D.

Since we took a connecting flight to Beijing out of
Shanghai, I didn't know how far out the airport was until we
drove from the hotel near downtown to the airport on the way
back. That must be why it seemed so dark.


TM

Glenn Dowdy wrote:

Pudong Airport is far enough away from downtown Shanghai to have anyone
arriving wonder where the lights are.

Mike Rivers wrote:

Bob Cain writes:


a Sony ECM-MS907


Hey, that's a great little mic if it is properly
compensated. I did anechoic impulse response measurements
on it to calculate appropriate compensating FIR's (magnitude
and phase) and the little thing became a monster. I'd use
it for damn near anything.


But does it SOUND good? It's been quite some time since I tried a Sony
single point stereo mic, but the one I tried (ECM-909 or something
like that, but then they're all something like that) sounded pretty
plastic, kind of like what electrets used to sound like when we could
only afford them but would really have preferred something else.

Yeah, it sounds great after I convolve the compensating
FIR's I calculate from measurements with the recordings.
The frequency magnitude response can be made very flat and
the group delay very coherent. It's self noise is low
enough to be generally useful and there's no distortion I
can hear even in pretty high SPL live situations. I've not
stuffed one down the throat of a sax yet but with a sax
distortion would be pretty hard to hear anyway. :-)

I've done enough experimenting with these measurement and
computational techniques that the time coherence in a stereo
mic is something that really stands out for me now. After
this kind of compensation, things are precisely located
rather than somewhere out there in the general direction
of... Of course, the absolute accuracy of any stereo image
depends on the overall directional nature of the
configuration but the relative location of anything within
that, perhaps warped, space is heard with less spatial smear
after compensation.

Something that makes a big difference with that mic is to
remove the two screws holding the outer, protective shroud
and sliding it off to more expose the capsules when in use.
With it in place, there is so much HF dispersion that the
time compensation is not nearly as effective. Even without
compensation, the HF response of the mic is improved
considerably by removal of that shroud.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

In article writes:

a Sony ECM-MS907

Yeah, it sounds great after I convolve the compensating
FIR's I calculate from measurements with the recordings.
The frequency magnitude response can be made very flat and
the group delay very coherent.

Something we can all do at home with our compooters, yes? g


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Mike Rivers wrote:

In article writes:


a Sony ECM-MS907


Yeah, it sounds great after I convolve the compensating
FIR's I calculate from measurements with the recordings.
The frequency magnitude response can be made very flat and
the group delay very coherent.


Something we can all do at home with our compooters, yes? g

You betcha. If, that is, you've got a DAW which can convert
between stereo and mid/side and has stereo convolution.

I had a little PC application in the works that would do
that and optionally apply transformations to other mics ala
Antares Mic Modeler but the coder and I had a falling out
over control of the project and I let him go. The straw was
when he insisted on clipping IEEE float results if they were
greater than one and I couldn't talk him out of it. :-(

Got a nice app very near completion for OSX too with a much
more managable collaborator but got stalled on it a while
back when I began working on some other things and have not
come back to it.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

A. & G. Reiswig wrote:

With all the iPods and other HD recorders out there, you'd think that one of
them would have tumbled to the idea that you could also do decent recordings
from a mic using one of their units. But from what I can tell, they use
4kHz sampling rates, low bit rates, etc.

There are some minidisk recorders out there that have mini plugs for
microphones, and apparently have a better quality that they record at.

But...if you were looking for a basic mono or stereo recorder that had
pretty decent sound, and was hopefully smaller than the typical DAT or
cassette recorder, what would you look at?

If you were trying to stay as small as the iPod, I'd recommend the
iRiver iHP-120. It's mic pres are not wonderful and if you boost gain
you'll hear the hard drive spinning up, but it's not terrible. Add an
external mic pre/A-to-D like the Denecke AD-20 or our Mic2496) and
you'll have a pretty nice (and small) recorder.

The new Sony Hi-MD recorders are reported to sound pretty nice. They're
limited to about 90 minutes on a disc at 16/44.1/




--
Len Moskowitz PDAudio, Binaural Mics, Cables, DPA, M-Audio
Core Sound http://www.stealthmicrophones.com
Teaneck, New Jersey USA http://www.core-sound.com
Tel: 201-801-0812, FAX: 201-801-0912

T Maki wrote:

Well, I just returned from 11 days in China recording
Beethoven, Vaughan-Williams, Wagner, Bizet, Mozart, and
other oldies with a Marantz PMD670 with a 1 Gb CF chip.

Sounds absolutely fine ...

Check out the PMD670. For about $800 (($700 for the machine
plus $100 for the chip (actually $89 at Fry's with a $20
rebate))), you get a nice, usable solution if your problem
is one that it will solve.

We posted a comparison of the Marantz PMD670, Fostex FR-2 and our
PDAudio system on our Web site:

http://www.core-sound.com/comparison...-670-fr-2.html

--
Len Moskowitz PDAudio, Binaural Mics, Cables, DPA, M-Audio
Core Sound http://www.stealthmicrophones.com
Teaneck, New Jersey USA http://www.core-sound.com
Tel: 201-801-0812, FAX: 201-801-0912

Bob Cain wrote:

...Hard drives packaged so close
to analog recording circuitry are problematic due to the
high di/dt noise they generate. You won't find a HD unit
with real pre-amps for this reason and even the line in
devices have noise well above -96 dBFS.

Our PDAudio system has good quality mic pres (in the Mic2496) and it
records fine with CF Microdrives and PCMCIA hard drives.

--
Len Moskowitz PDAudio, Binaural Mics, Cables, DPA, M-Audio
Core Sound http://www.stealthmicrophones.com
Teaneck, New Jersey USA http://www.core-sound.com
Tel: 201-801-0812, FAX: 201-801-0912

Yup. I read it before I bought the Marantz. All three are
pretty good solutions depending on the requirements. I might
consider the PDAudio a little later.

Nice comparison write-up.


TM

Len Moskowitz wrote:



We posted a comparison of the Marantz PMD670, Fostex FR-2 and our
PDAudio system on our Web site:

http://www.core-sound.com/comparison...-670-fr-2.html

Len Moskowitz wrote:

Bob Cain wrote:


...Hard drives packaged so close
to analog recording circuitry are problematic due to the
high di/dt noise they generate. You won't find a HD unit
with real pre-amps for this reason and even the line in
devices have noise well above -96 dBFS.


Our PDAudio system has good quality mic pres (in the Mic2496) and it
records fine with CF Microdrives and PCMCIA hard drives.

I meant fully integrated, Len, but I hear ya. What unit has
the gozintas and gozoutas to make a large HD recording
system using your technology?


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein