Mznhf800 Vs Edirol R-1 (price/value)

[Lycaon]

First things first: love this board, thanks to all for the great info, opinions, and support. I would like to get some opinions about the price/value difference between the Sony MZNHF800 and the Edirol R-1.

The total investment for the Sony would be about $200 even, where as the Edirol plus CF card would cost around $450 - $500.

Are the added quality and convenience from the Edirol worth an extra $250 - $300? The only criteria are the quality of the A/D chip and storage; CF vs MiniDisk reusability. Only usage would be analogue recordings; portable vocal studio sort of thing, opera lessons, coaching, etc, using the AT822

I guess to be fair I could rope the H120 into the mix. Anyone compared that to HI-MD?

Last bit: any update on the H320 supporting WAV recordings?

Thanks

[dex Otaku]

The main differences that I see, having used HiMD and only looked at the specsheet for the R-1:

HiMD: 16-bit 44.1kHz;

R-1: [up to] 24-bit 44.1kHz

HiMD: All recordings are wrapped with Sony's DRM, user is limited to using only Sony's software, recordings are transferrable only once, software is unreliable and unintuitive at best, recordings are in unusable format with going through Sony's software first;

R-1: No DRM, flash media mount as normal drives, recordings are totally in the clear, and in open and readily usable formats

I can't attest to the R-1S interface, but my NH-700 is quite usable, if not always intuitive. I personally wish that Sony would go back to the old way of actually having buttons and switches for options that are likely to be used often [such as manual record volume, auto track-marking, and mic sensitivity].

I can make no complaints whatsoever about the recording quality of the NH-700.

The main advantages I see to the R-1 are the open recording formats, no DRM, and the fact that there are no moving parts in it.

What we need is for someone to get their hands on one of these little beasts and put it through its paces to see how it does. You never know - despite having 24-bit recording, it might have awful preamps or something.

I, personally - if I had the money, I'd go test the R-1 and probably bring it home, and use both it and my NH-700.

[Stupor]

This is not relevant, but I have to say,

R-1 is BUTT-UGLY

You HAVE to agree with me on that.

[dex Otaku]

This seems to be something that people in the world of minidisc care about in particular.

I, personally, couldn't give two sh*ts whether what I'm using looks nice or not.

I want it to work, and work well. If it looks nice, that's a bonus, but function is so far above fashion in my world that really - it's next to irrelevant.

Oh, another advantage to the R-1: backlit display

[rirsa]

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."

[tartan]

post removed

Edited July 22, 2005 by tartan

[Lycaon]

dex Otaku, thank you for the insight. I guess it's worth it to pay the extra money to avoid all the sony garbage. I noticed that prices on the R-1 dropped around 390 this weekend, and you can now get a 1GB card under $20, so looks like the price isn't going to be as much of an issue

rirsa, wow, major flaw in the H120. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll drop that one from the list.

[etotheix]

Wow Lycaon, where are you finding these deals?

[rirsa]

and you can now get a 1GB card under $20

←

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.

[rirsa]

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.

[robin726]

Also note a major deficiency: the R-1 does not have an optical input.

[dex Otaku]

Also note a major deficiency: the R-1 does not have an optical input.

←

For people whose primary use of these units is location recording, this is a total non-issue. [unless, of course, they're using outboard A/D convertors, which is rare. People usually buy portables so they can carry -less- equipment, not more.]

[twoheadedboy]

I'm using the NHF-800 as my recorder until A) Sharp comes out with a better Hi-MD unit and the discs drop in price (at which time the 800 will turn into my player), or I can get a stealthy 24/96 hard disk and/or CF recorder for $500 that runs off of AA's.