rirsa

Where did you read that battery is fixed and can not be replaced? I don't think M-audio has posted the details on this yet. There are people who can't easily offload for extended periods--that's not a very big market...

Yeah, a $3 roll of Kodachrome is a lot cheaper than a 1GB CF card as well ;-)

M-Audio http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack-main.html $369 at Core Sound. 2-channel WAV and MP3 recording and playback for pro recording, meetings, training, education and worship storage via convenient CompactFlash or microdrives immediate drag-and-drop file transfer to PC and Mac via USB 2.0 mini- connector powered via USB, rechargeable lithium-ion battery or power supply (both included) separate left and right input level controls with signal and peak indicators professional balanced 1/4” TRS inputs with mic/line switch dual microphone preamps with phantom power for studio microphones 1/8” TRS input with 5V power for use with stereo electret microphone (microphone included) S/PDIF coaxial input for digital transfers monitoring via RCA line outputs or 1/8” stereo headphone output stereo output level control large LCD for navigation and statistics dedicated buttons for navigation, record, hold, pause, delete, menu, and power includes software for editing and file format conversion 64MB CompactFlash card included MP3 recording: 96 to 320kbps at 32, 44.1 or 48kHz PCM recording: 16 or 24-bit at 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96kHz storage capacity: variable based on data rate and storage medium battery life before recharge: approximately eight hours (three hours with phantom power)

The reviewer on Transom who works as a producer/engineer for Public Radio says this: "Marantz is frequently criticized for the noisiness of their mic preamps, but the 660's are fairly clean when used with condenser mics, which the manual recommends, saying that dynamic mics will work, but are not ideal. The unit will provide phantom power for condenser mics. With fairly loud condenser mics there's still a very low hiss, but it's so low it's unlikely to cause much of a problem for most users....The mic pre amps are decent quality when used with condenser mics" Any recorder under $500 is a compromise. Marantz are trying to meet the needs of as wide a range of people who need a quality portable recorder with professional features for under $500. It's not perfect but the bottom line here is that the noise is "unlikely to cause much of a problem for most users." The reviewer doesn't compare the preamp noise with an MD recorder but he's written extensively on consumer MD recorders and so I think his silence on this issue means that the difference wasn't a significant factor in his evaluation. There are probably other factors that are more significant in determining what compromise works or doesn't work for a particular user. If money wasn't an issue we'd all be using a Sound Devices 722 with some mics to match but it would be overkill for most of us. And there would still be compromises. I hear more expensive units like the HHB pro minidisc recorder and the Sound devices have pretty bad battery life. Such is life.

I was mostly talking about people who have to record interviews, meetings etc. as part of their work. That's a pretty substantial market and Sony used to have a large chuck of that market. When I was using MD on a regular basis I also thought this. But it is actually a big issue for a lot of people. It makes the recorder much easier to use. It's not just the larger buttons; it's the whole design. No annoying menus (preferred settings are set up and saved in advance). Turn the power on and push the large record button and you're going. Solid red light so you know you are recording and not in pause etc. Easy and reliable. But you have to go through SonicStage and a conversion process. Compared with the process involved with one of the Marantz units, it is complicated, slow, and unreliable. I haven't heard anyone say they like SonicStage. Also only works on PCs. I don't think I ever tried letting the batteries run out while recording on my MD units. Guess one might be okay but not something I think I'd want to try. You've got to use one of the Marantz recorders to appreciate the lack of worry about Toc write failures etc. The PMD670 comes with digital in. It's nice but the only advantage of digital in is that you can hook it up to a better preamp which obviates MD's size and cost advantages. The Marantz recorders come with extensive editing and marking features. I thought Creative stopped making the NJB3. I guess long record time and rapid upload but meters, ergonomics, menus etc are all awful. I guess it has its uses but I'd stick with MD for recording over the NJB3 or similar units from iRiver etc. Various users and reviewers I've read have noted that the iRiver hd units drop samples...Ugh!

I think Marantz has a much broader market in mind than professional broadcast. That is certainly one of their markets but if you look at the case studies and application markets they list you'll see they are targeting a fairly diverse group of users. They list business, education (e.g. linguists, qualitative researchers, etc.), nature recording, government, musician/oerformance, and others. I'd add in legal recording...The PMD660/670 are primarily (but not limited to) anyone who records interviews/meetings/conferences/lectures -- a huge and diverse user base, many of whom will probably like this machine a lot because of the fast upload, easy of use, and greater reliability. MD, as you point out, has a significant advantage for stealth recording. There might be other situations where MD has an adavantage as well. If you are in a remote location and have to do a lot of recording before you have an opportunity to offload from the CF card to computer then the cost of the media and the lower AA battery requirements might give MD a significant edge. But these are specialized and limited markets. Marantz sold truck loads of the PMD670 and I bet they sell even more PMD660s. Bottom line is that Sony's losing market on two fronts--player (iPod etc) and recorder. They messed up. MD is also cheaper although for the type of professional users listed above I think the difference of several hundred dollars is insignificant. In the overall scheme of other costs several hundred dollars is trival and is eaily made up for in improved reliability, fast upload, etc. In the long run MD is actually more expensive for most of these users. Mics. For a lot of people the internal mics on the Marantz will work fine (e.g. recording for transcription etc.) I agree that anyone buying one of these units and who needs higher quality will probably want to use a professional mic or mics with XLR connectors. That said, other mics will work with adapters. The small binaural stealth mics made by Sound Pros and others will work. You'll need a battery box with mini input on one side and XLR outputs on the other (make sure phantom power on the recorder is turned off).

For the PMD660 the ones that come to mind are: *Fast upload via USB direct from machine to either MAC or PC. CF card appears as external drive so just drag and drop. The cards is removeable so you can also use any type of reader or adapter for CF cards. (No SonicStage / DRM nonesense). *XLR inputs *Large, easy to use controls and good design so recording is fast and reliable. * Solid state so highly insenitive so vibration and bumps. * Automatically saves recording and shutdowns before batteries run out. There are a few more features on the PMD670/671 (digital in, limiter, etc) but larger size and additional cost. There are trade-offs with everything so whether these are an advantage over MD depends on the user and application. For professional interview recording I think the PMD660 has a lot of advantages over MD.

PMD660 is now widely available. There's a review written by a PRI producer/engineer here: http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_int...503.pmd660.html

The price is a lot cheaper in the US. The PMD670 normally sells for around $700 but can be found as low as $589 (450 Eur). The PMD is being listed for $499 (385 EUR) at the moment but my guess is that we'll see it cheaper. Not sure what the availability is in the US at the moment.

User report on R-1: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/message/16458 Based on this, and depending on your purposes, the Marantz PMD-660, which costs $60 more might be a better value.

Here's a user report on the Edirol R-1: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/message/16458 Based on the fact that this person reports "Clearly the designers have no experience with field recording," I'd say wait and see what users have to say about the Marantz PMD660. Marantz, unlike Edirol, has been designing gear for different types of field recording for many years...

I'm a little late to this conversation but thought I'd add a few remarks. It would be interesting to have more details about the way the recorder will be used. If this isn't for broadcast journalism (i.e. she's not a reporter producing pieces for radio) then maybe the audio quality isn't so critical. Maybe it just needs to be easily intelligible. Transom, as someone suggested already, is a useful site. They are down on the little portable voice recorders like the DM-10 but then again they are more interested in getting broadcast audio. There is in fact a story on Transom that was put together using an older Olympus voice recorder that uses a much lower sample rate and amazingly enough it isn't too bad. Here's the link: http://www.transom.org/shows/2003/200308.lawnmower.html. The newer Olympus recorders use the WMA format and sample at 44.1kHz. The DM-10, DM-20 and DS-2200 have a high quality setting that is uses 64kbps stereo WMA. There is an even newer Olympus recorder, the DS-2 that has a high quality setting that uses 128kbps stereo WMA with an upper end freq. response of 17kHz. The frequency response is constrained to an upper-end of 8kHz in the other three but for voice you really only want the mid-range, assuming this isn't for broadcast. I haven't used one of these devices but I suspect they probably work well under certain circumstances and for certain uses. Battery life is very good and if you need longer record times look at the DS-2200 as it supports removable memory. The cost will be similar to MD, aside from DM-10 which is cheaper. An issue with the Olympus voice recorders and minidisc and the R-1 to some degree may be design. If you are doing reporting in the field it is probably very important to have something that is rugged, reliable, and easy to use. You don't want to be fiddling with menus, small buttons, and worrying about miniplug connectors. If you want something designed with field journalism and similar types of audio gathering in mind look at the Marantz PMD660. At around $500 that's at the top of your price range. http://www.proaudiosuperstore.com/marantz-pmd660.html

Yeah, that seems like an amazing deal. The cheapest I've seen recently was $49 for 1GB and more typical prices for the cheaper brand cards seem to be around $60-$70. That said, I'm sure it won't be long before $20 1GB CF Cards are widely available given that the cost seems to drop at least 50% every 12 months. Eventually there will be no significant price advantage to MD.

Exactly. Apple killed them in the player market and companies like Edirol and Marantz are going to kill them in the low end (i.e. sub-$500) "amateur/enthusiast, semipro, or professional recordists" market. Many users are producing their own content so copyright isn't an issue. What is an issue is that Sony's slow/unreliable digital upload and DRM/Wav converter nonsense unnecessarily inserters itself into the work flow and annoys the hell out of anyone creating and working with original material.

Check out the recording technology forum here: http://www.oade.com/Tapers_Section/Forum/dcboard.php See in particular comments by Doug Oade and posted sample recording. Also you may want to do some research on the iRiver units mentioned. See http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_iriver/index.html Here's an excerpt: "While acknowledging the problem, iRiver points out that the H120 isn't designed for professional work. But that's not the standard I'm holding them to. Rather, I compare this $400 device with a $200 MiniDisc (MD) recorder, another consumer device with an optical input. I've never seen an MD that regularly dropped samples, let alone 45 in a row."

Check out the new Sound Devices recorders and the portable recorder under development at Sonosax.

http://my.mackie.com/tracktionpromo.asp

With the CF card recorders you definitely have to offload. That's either a plus or a minus depending on how you work. With MD you can use the original as your archive copy. On the other hand offloading is a lot easier, faster and more reliable with any of the Marantz recorders or the Edirol. Let's face it, you have to be on a very tight budget or masochistic to put up with Sony's Wav Converter, Sonicstage contortions. CF Card prices are also dropping fast. 1GB is around $75 at the moment and in another year maybe it will be $30. Given that serious recorders supporting CF Cards are also appearing at more reasonable prices you have to think that Sony is about to lose a nice sized slice of the recording market just like they lost a nice slice of the player market to Apple. I wouldn't buy their stock.

Edirol R-1 http://www.edirol.com/products/info/r1.html Marantz PMD-670 http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=1582 Marantz PMD-671 http://www.d-mpro.eu.com/users/folder.asp?...18&SubCatID=169 Marantz PMD-660 www.niehoff.nl/marantz/pmd660.pdf The 670 is the only one available at the moment but the other three will be available in the next few months. Prices start at around $430. These are all made by pro audio companies and are designed with recording as their primary function. Aside from the sound quality, the reliability and design is (in the case of 670) or should be much better than anything you find in a cheap consumer HD-based recorder.

FYI: http://www.niehoff.nl/marantz/pmd660.pdf

I don't know when the 671 is appearing. There is even less information about it than the 660 and no official mention from Marantz yet. Search using Google. There's a nice review of the 670 here: http://sldghamr.faithweb.com/PMD670.html

There are other new CF card recorders coming out aside from the recently announced Edirol R-1. Edirol also annouced the R-4 (a four channel pro version). And Marantz is coming out with the PMD-660, a smaller, simplier and cheaper version of the PMD-670. They are also apparently updatding the PMD-670. The new PMD-671 will support uncompressed recording at sample rates up to 96kHz at 24 bits. Not much official info on the 660. Unofficial info here: http://www.easternelectronics.co.uk/pmd660.htm My guess is that it will have a similar street price to that of the Editol R-1, maybe a little more. probably around $450 to $500.

Does the R-1 work with compact flash larger than 2GB and/or Microdrive technology? (submitted 9/29/2004) The R-1 is compatible with FAT32 format so it is not limited by the 2GB barrier. When we have tested a larger flash (e.g, CF is now available in 4GB, 6GB and 8GB sizes), we will post the results. The R-1 is not compatible with Microdrive; it consumes too much current to make it practical for this unit's design.

It doesn't look like the Edirol comes with these functions. A lot of the Marantz recorders do. The PMD-670, for example, comes with EDL (Edit Decision List) marking system that can be used on the recorder to create and edit marks and tracks etc. This particular EDL system is apparently proprietary to Marantz. They also sell an editing software called PMDEdit that can be used to manipulate the EDL marks on a PC. The system is geared to radio journalists who may need to record and edit interviews in the field and then upload segments via a satellite or some other type of link. I am not sure how it compares to the MD editing system.

Pre-order price of $439 at http://www.bananas.com/. Suspect we'll see lower prices later, but even at this price it's not much more than a MZ-NH1.