Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Buzby-
I've sold a bunch of Microtracks at this point, so I've heard back from my customers. The verdict seems split. Some people are happy with it, others are not. It isn't uncommon to have a split opinion about this sort of gear.
One of the draw back for you may be battery life. The Microtrack has an internal rechargeable battery. An 8 hour charge time gives you about 3 hours of field use, then you have no choice but to charge for another 8 hours or find an AC outlet out there in the bush somehow and use it with the ac adapter. There is no other way to power it.
One customer complained that the included stereo mic craps out if the music or sound source you're recording gets too loud. I.E. the included mic has a low SPL.
The Edirol R-1 runs on AA batteries that you can pop in and pop out when they die. Another plus is the MP3 encoding on this machine sounds really nice, it's hard to tell the difference between it and WAV. Unlike the Marantz PMD660, on which the MP3 encoding sounds scratchy. The R-1 only has a mini mic input. The R-9 is too new so I haven't delt with it yet.
The Marantz 660 is one to avoid. The 670 and 671 however are very nice (except of MP3 quality), but they are both larger units.
Tascam has a new one called the HDP2. I've sold a bunch of these and so far everyone loves it. Again this is a larger recorder. Same with the Fostex FR2. Nice machine, large size.
The best stuff I've seen are the Sound Devices 722 and 744T. Price is the barrier with those.
Nargra just came out with a small recorder but it isn't that great.
My advice is to get the R-1 if you want something small. If you need XLR ins then get a larger recorder like the 670. If you want the best and can spend the $$ get the 722 or the 744T.
Ever had anyone complain of low level recordings ? It doesn't seem to matter what Mic I use with it, I always seem to get a low level recording, which obviously means more noise when I bring it up.
Even when just recording interviews using a Shure-58 I get a pretty low level ? I'm sure the inputs are setup correctly ? Could be me doing something wrong, but interested to hear anyone elses comments ?
Nev