non-MD recorders

[stowsmum]

I was going to get a minidisc recorder before realising that flash-based mp3 players are often much smaller and can do good quality recording through line-in. Can anyone recommend good quality line-in recorders that can record to either high bitrate mp3 (with a good encoder), lossless wav or FLAC. There seems to be a vacuum in the market for cheap devices like this.

The Creative Zen Nano looks okay but can only do 160kbps mp3. Surely there are devices this size that can record to FLAC or wav?

Thanks

[A440]

The two affordable serious recorders are the Samson Zoom H2 and the Edirol R09.

Their built-in mic preamps are said to be not as good as minidisc for straight-in mic recording, but for line-in recording that obviously makes no difference, and they both do higher-resolution .wav recording than minidisc. Things like track marking and on-unit editing are more limited than MD.

At a higher price point is the Sony PCM D50.

[stowsmum]

The two affordable serious recorders are the Samson Zoom H2 and the Edirol R09.

Their built-in mic preamps are said to be not as good as minidisc for straight-in mic recording, but for line-in recording that obviously makes no difference, and they both do higher-resolution .wav recording than minidisc. Things like track marking and on-unit editing are more limited than MD.

At a higher price point is the Sony PCM D50.

Thanks but I don't quite need that quality and I'm looking for something cheaper (without expensive mics, etc.) If you can get a 1GB mp3 player which will record to mp3 on the fly for about £20, surely something that records to a lossless format (and doesn't need to have tons of other features) should be available for roughly the same price?

[kino170878]

People nowadays are perfectly comfortable with crap quality, such as recording tin foil sound through their mobile phone. If you would rather have WAV or lossless quality in your recordings, you're going to have to look at the professional audio market which is more expensive.

[stowsmum]

People nowadays are perfectly comfortable with crap quality, such as recording tin foil sound through their mobile phone. If you would rather have WAV or lossless quality in your recordings, you're going to have to look at the professional audio market which is more expensive.

It just seems really strange that there is such an unexploited vacuum in the market. It doesn't have to cost a lot to throw together a matchbox that can record to wav - I can't believe that nobody offers a solution like this...

[kino170878]

It just seems really strange that there is such an unexploited vacuum in the market. It doesn't have to cost a lot to throw together a matchbox that can record to wav - I can't believe that nobody offers a solution like this...

No it's not strange at all really, as I already explained most people are happy with their shitty sound system. You are basically a 1 in a thousand customer, there is little to no money in providing a quality recording device to your specification. Sad but true.

Edited January 7, 2008 by kino170878

[Strungup]

I can't believe that nobody offers a solution like this...

Well , if you cant believe it , then you just dont understand the economics . The MD recorders were introduced at a time when Sony was trying to be "Cool" , everything was about experimentation ( Hey what if we could do THIS!!) and it wasnt so much about the money , Sony had other markets to sustain them , so the little Audiophile niche was more of just having fun with it .

Enter MP3 and the internet , " Woo Hooo !!! we can SHARE music now . ........... Hey no biggie Mp3 sounds like crap , so no big threat >""

MD gets a little wider distrobution , then , Whoa MP3 PLAYERS !!!! now you can CARRY the crap around with you .

Sony doesnt bite ,.... Net MD STILL a long way off .

Then comes the Ubiquitus Ipod ......... ( we can hear the collective groan from the entire MDCF ) , Sony STILL doesnt truely bite ( geez a little slow eh! )

Net MD and Sonic Stage , Net MD , hmmm ok cool ,............... Sonic Stage ,.... God the Bugs and gliches , ...........Enter Itunes , with a STORE where you can BUY the Crap .

If we can sell Crap , and people will BUY it , then WE had better not let them make GOOD copies of ANYTHING , or WE will LOSE MONEY .

Enter" DRM "

Digital Rights Management , and the end of any reason to make a "Matchbox " that will record in Wav .

if you want a device that records in any quality , at THIS particular time and space , then you have to pay for it . wait a couple more years there will be a DIY kit on the shelf at your hobby shop for 20 dollars .

[A440]

Your almost-dream device was the now discontinued iRiver T30, which had a line input. Not .wav recording but .mp3 at up to 320 kbps. They're still around at about your $40 price for the red 1GB units--which is way down from the original price.

But the firmware updates took mp3 recording down to 96 kbps maximum, so you need to find one with un-updated firmware. Try eBay.

Was it because the processor couldn't handle it? Or was there a vast conspiracy to disallow high-quality recording?

The successor unit, the iRiver T60, doesn't have a line-in. Of course, you could spend $200 on the iRiver F700.

http://www.mobilewhack.com/iriver-f700-4gb...ording-edition/

Or you could get a Samson Zoom H2. Or, if you don't mind an old unit with a rechargeable battery that eventually wears out and needs soldering to replace, there's the iRiver H120 / H140 (20/40 GB hard drive recorder), which has optical in and out, or the Cowon iAudio X5 (20, 30 or 60 GB), which is FLAC-friendly. Also around $200 on eBay.

I would guess that one reason .wav recording wasn't put on little flash recorders was that 1GB only holds 90 mins of recording, and that's if there's nothing else on it. People who had loaded them up with mp3s wouldn't have enough room for a serious recording.

[stowsmum]

Your almost-dream device was the now discontinued iRiver T30, which had a line input. Not .wav recording but .mp3 at up to 320 kbps. They're still around at about your $40 price for the red 1GB units--which is way down from the original price.

But the firmware updates took mp3 recording down to 96 kbps maximum, so you need to find one with un-updated firmware. Try eBay.

Thank you! I still think there are plenty of people out there who want to record but want to use lossless digital formats cheaply rather than the expensive tape-based systems that are common.

Do you know more about this T30? Why were features taken away with an upgrade? Was it reliable and decent quality (could the processor cope)? And finally, do you know which firmware version buggered everything up or which encoder it uses?

[cornreaper]

There's always the option of the Rockbox firmware update, which will allow WAV recording on a number of mp3 players

[stowsmum]

There's always the option of the Rockbox firmware update, which will allow WAV recording on a number of mp3 players

Didn't realise Rockbox did that. If some of the small, cheap players have Rockbox and can do that, it would be perfect! Can anyone recommend players which have good quality line-ins and Rockbox?

Edited January 8, 2008 by stowsmum

[A440]

Actually, maybe the T30 is what you want. It's eBay time.

Checking out the iRiver forums at www.misticriver.net , it seems my memory got scrambled. It was the IFP-7xx series that lost its higher bitrates through a firmware upgrade. I have both an IFP-795 that I was careful not to upgrade and a T30.

Just made a line-in recording from a CD onto the T30, which I'm sending to you as a PM. It is 320 kbps.

Playback on the T30 from the headphone jack isn't the greatest sound quality. Of course that doesn't matter since you're transferring the recordings elsewhere. There's no level metering and no on-the-fly level control--you set line-in level before you start recording. The iRiver interface is very peculiar--lots of menus within menus--partly because the display is so small. But it sounds a lot better than the concert recordings I tried with it.

Track marks, on-unit editing, etc.--nope.

You can look at www.rockbox.org for very detailed information on other units, but you'll find no joy. Actually, I just looked. Here's the list:

* Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano

(not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)

* Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio

* Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5 and M5L

* iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series

* SanDisk: Sansa c200, e200 and e200R series (not the v2 models)

* Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)

Those are not the cheap tiny units you are envisioning, but mostly big hard-drive units. The Sansa, which are fairly cheap and tiny, don't have a line-in jack (and their built-in mic recording is just awful). Ipods need an external gizmo for an input.

Rockbox or not, the hardware makes the big difference. Software can't put a line-in jack into a unit that doesn't have one.

[stowsmum]

Actually, maybe the T30 is what you want. It's eBay time.

Checking out the iRiver forums at www.misticriver.net , it seems my memory got scrambled. It was the IFP-7xx series that lost its higher bitrates through a firmware upgrade. I have both an IFP-795 that I was careful not to upgrade and a T30.

Just made a line-in recording from a CD onto the T30, which I'm sending to you as a PM. It is 320 kbps.

Playback on the T30 from the headphone jack isn't the greatest sound quality. Of course that doesn't matter since you're transferring the recordings elsewhere. There's no level metering and no on-the-fly level control--you set line-in level before you start recording. The iRiver interface is very peculiar--lots of menus within menus--partly because the display is so small. But it sounds a lot better than the concert recordings I tried with it.

Track marks, on-unit editing, etc.--nope.

Thanks again for your help. I looked at the Rockbox site again and came to pretty much the same conclusion you did. Seems that the cheap basic players don't have enough power to make new Rockbox functionality worthwhile.

However, the T30 seems ever more promising. As long as it will always record to 320 kbps, that will be pretty good. I've still got a few questions though. Does it have a 3.5mm line-in jack or is it one of the smaller mini-jacks? I can live without monitoring or no-the-fly control but how low is the lowest setting - I go to pretty loud concerts and have had problems with clipping before. Did you convert yours to UMS mode and did this affect the recording functionality? Finally, do you know what mp3 encoder is uses or how I could find out?

Thanks again for all your help

Edited January 9, 2008 by stowsmum

[A440]

Regular 3.5mm minijack. You can monitor through the headphone jack while recording--you just can't do anything about it while recording. But you can hear through the headphone jack while adjusting the Line-in Volume before you start recording.

I tried it with the CD player at full volume--headphone out to line-in. With Line-in Volume about halfway up, it's possible to record without distortion.

The T30 already is UMS. The conversion is for the other units, the IFP units.

What encoder? Or, more important, what resolution on the ADConverter? No idea. It's in the firmware, and recording has three settings: Low, Medium and High fidelity, no numbers attached. (Though the kbps would show on playback.) Don't think about LAME. The whole thing is the size of a fat triangular thumb with firmware small enough to leave nearly 1GB on the unit. It's not user programmable, and it's not running Windows or a Mac OS.

Edited January 9, 2008 by A440

[stowsmum]

Regular 3.5mm minijack. You can monitor through the headphone jack while recording--you just can't do anything about it while recording. But you can hear through the headphone jack while adjusting the Line-in Volume before you start recording.

I tried it with the CD player at full volume--headphone out to line-in. With Line-in Volume about halfway up, it's possible to record without distortion.

The T30 already is UMS. The conversion is for the other units, the IFP units.

What encoder? Or, more important, what resolution on the ADConverter? No idea. It's in the firmware, and recording has three settings: Low, Medium and High fidelity, no numbers attached. (Though the kbps would show on playback.) Don't think about LAME. The whole thing is the size of a fat triangular thumb with firmware small enough to leave nearly 1GB on the unit. It's not user programmable, and it's not running Windows or a Mac OS.

Thanks again. This is all really great info. Looks like I'll have to find a cheap unit on eBay...