greenmachine

A higher cutoff does not equal better quality. Lossy codecs compress in many more ways, of which most are not easily visible in graphs.

Unlike Li-Ion, Ni-based rechargeables need maintenance to work well for extended periods. They particularly don't like repeated partial (dis)charge. http://www.batteryuniversity.com/

Monitoring is possible but can cause acoustic feedback if the mics are too close to the monitors and/or too much gain is used.

You could just use the parametric EQ built into Audacity (Menu - Effect - Equalization...). Make that window as large as possible to get a detailed view. Set (at least) two markers, one at the extreme left of the line, one to your desired roll-off frequency (probably somewhere between 100 and 200 Hz, at 0dB). Drag the left marker downwards and use the preview button to determine if it sounds good, otherwise correct. There is noticeable distortion in your sample though, which are probably the mics themselves not being able to handle the extreme levels since the levels hardly reach the 0dB mark. A battery box roll-off filter unfortunately can't improve the mics' high SPL handling, so if you want to get rid of that "fuzz", you would need to invest in some mics that can handle higher SPLs.

Ever heard about room resonances? You may have placed the mic in a low frequency weak spot. Try moving it a bit around and see what happens. Use your ears to find a well balanced spot.

It's probably the mic. Most Sony mics are low sensitivity (low output), which can be good or bad, depending on your use and tend to roll off low frequencies. With a different mic (particularly with omnidirectional mics) the situation can be totally different.

The mics are quite flexible if built this way. Put them close to your ears, just above them for a semi-binaural (hrtf) recording without the nasty colorations of putting them into your pinna. Your head (or any other physical barrier between the mics) will give them a natural directionality, which is perceived as if you were there when listened to the recording via headphones, just like in the example link you provided. The influence of microphone position on the resulting sound should not be underestimated.

Maria McKee - Life Is Sweet

There are no room resonances when recording outdoors, but wind noise can be a problem (windscreens recommended). What kind of mics / recorder /other gear do you use for recording?

http://minidisc.org/faq_sec_3.html#_q10

Here's my moderated version, maybe it's easier to handle in one file: hf_test.mp3

Hey wizard, I think something went seriously wrong during your editing, they're not pure sine tones anymore, but a collection of tones, of which the fundamental goes as low as 1 kHz. No wonder anyone can hear that.

In my experience, noise is usually only an issue when recording quiet sounds that need lots of pre-amplification, whereas when recording loud sounds everything, including the noise is attenuated and thus hardly audible. Professional gear really shines in quiet situations, just like in photography/filming where you will notice the most significant differences between consumer and pro gear in low light.

Option #1 should produce higher quality results, as long as the output doesn't produce noticeable distortion at high volumes.

MD is a 44.1 kHz sample rate only format - just like CD - whereas DVD audio is often recorded in 48 kHz, thus there will be a down-sampling whether you copy the digital or analog route. A bit perfect copy is not possible with MD, but the quality should be still quite good even if you need to go the analogue route. With a PC you could use an audio extractor application to create a bit-perfect copy (at least with a non-protected DVD).

among others: - faster USB transfer - fixed mp3 playback (second generation units had high frequency roll-off) - remembers manual level setting (recording)

listening to: Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

If you ever want to record in the highest quality PCM, 94 minutes can be a tad short for a long show, so having at least two 1GB discs would be useful. Your recorder will continue a new recording as a new track without overwriting the existing ones by default. The available recording time will be shorter by the sum of the existing tracks. You can have different mode recordings - PCM (1411 kbps), Hi-SP (256 kbps) and Hi-LP (64 kbps) together on one disc. With PCM mode, I would suggest beginning with a blank disc for a new recording if you don't know the exact length of the show. After the content has been uploaded, converted and archived (see here), the disc can be blanked and reused.

Actually you can change levels on the fly as with any other Hi-MD recorder if you put the recorder in manual level mode before starting the recording. If it's a good idea to change levels during a recording is a different question.

Actually it seems to be a mono mic with a stereo plug so that the signal gets distributed to both channels instead of just the left one. The linked CS mic should give you much better results, though there are even less expensive alternatives. For recording loud sounds, the sound quality will benefit from using the mics at the line-in via a battery box. Otherwise, when recording loud sounds via the mic-in, the preamp might overload and produce distortion.

Mono mics sound good for close miking (speech, etc.). If you record from a distance, there will be a good amount of ambient noise, room acoustics present on the recording, which will sound far more natural with stereo mics, particularly if not one-point, but spaced.

From the manual (page 25):

Although Hi-SP is of decent quality, I tend to use the highest quality I can afford, which means if I expect the concert to be less than 95 min in length (when using 1GB blanks) or expect to have a minute pause to be able to change discs, I use PCM. PCM should be transferred "as is", can be converted to wav and finally compressed using a lossless compression scheme like flac. Hi-SP should also be transferred "as is". If you want to archive Hi-SP files (.oma extension), you need to remove their copy protection, which prevents them to be used on other SonicStage installations (details here). Or you decompress to wav and use lossles compression in the same way as with PCM recordings, which will take more space than using the files in their native Hi-SP format, but you will have a universally usable file.

Did you move the unit during recording? MD is a mechanical medium. In vertical position the mechanism is particularly susceptible to shock.

Both of these recorders can probably record in much higher quality than the mentioned mic can deliver. If you're not satisfied with the resulting quality, look for a mic upgrade first.