What should I do? Get rid of skipping MR-R70 for a MZ-NF610

[banksb]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum. I have a Sony MZ-R70 which I mainly use for recording band practice. Recently it has begun skipping and I've tried a head cleaner. Also, the remote seems to be shorting out causing track skipping and random behavior. I bought this thing ALMOST 4 years ago from best buy and got the product replacement plan. So, now, I'm thinking of going back to best buy and getting an exchange. I think what I would be getting is the MZ-NF610, which looks cool, but it has no mic input.

I currently use a homemade mic (out of those Panasonic (?) wm-61a mics, ordered from digikey). I noticed the MZ-NF610 does not have a mic-input. Will i have to make a 9V battery powersupply to use the MZ-NF610 to record on the line input?

Does this work properly? Does anyone use this setup with good results? Any other advice?

Thank you

[KJ_Palmer]

Hi. If you got the NF610 you would certainly need some sort of external power - either a battery box or mic pre-amp. If your band is very loud you might get away with a battery box (cheaper option), but your recordings will still be on the quiet side compared to your R70, and you'd need to fiddle around with them on a PC or deck, just to 'normalise' them to decent levels.

As you have access to mains power (I assume), however, you could get yourself a cheap mains powered mic pre-amp for use with the NF610. They're cheaper than the tiny battery powered/stealth type pre-amps you get from the likes of Sound Professionals. Somewhere like Radio Shack should have a good-ish one for about $10-$20.

Another option is to get either the next Sony model up, the N710, which has mic-in or another brand recorder (preferably Sharp) with a mic-input. The Sharp IM-DR420 would be a good choice if you can get that one.