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Recommendations for a Portable Audio Recorder

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Gman0117:
Hey guys, I'm very new here as some (or many) might be able to tell, though there's a burning question ignited in my mind lately: "What is the best portable audio recorder for my needs?". To give y'all some background, I am a weather enthusiast and love recording thunderstorms on video and audio. Lately I've been sick and tired of all the horrendous weather videos out there that either feature wind distortion out the wazoo, monophonic sound, or both. I decided to purchase a Zoom H2 recorder to start out and have been using its internal microphones going on 2+ years now. Since then, I've discovered the amazing world of binaural audio recording and searched for portable binaural microphones that are high quality and affordable; I found them: the Sound Professionals MS-TFB-2, utilizing a 3.5mm plug. I've listened to many sound samples of these microphones and they sound simply amazing. A problem arose, however: I wanted to use my Zoom H2 as the microphone for my DSLR, the Nikon D3300, and I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to plug the Sound Professionals into the ext. mic in and have the audio signal feed into the Nikon out the Zoom's line out to avoid the extra step of syncing the audio together in post production. The issue here is not the quality of the DSLR's microphone preamp; it's that it records to 48000Hz at 16 bits when I want to record audio at 96000Hz at 24 bits. Then another problem arose: when I listened back to recordings made with the Sound Professionals again, this time made with the Zoom H2, I could hear hissing and it started to become distracting. To get my point across for tl;dr folks, I'm looking to find a audio recorder that is:

1) Portable and can hopefully fit into a pocket (pants, jackets, etc.)

2) Has a clean 3.5mm mic input with a low noise floor

3) $325 or less

4) Readily available (It's on Amazon, B&H,  etc.)

I've been eyeing at the Roland R-07 and the Tascam DR-100MKIII (I've found prices under $325 for this guy) but I don't know if the 3.5mm ext. mic inputs on these two are good or not (not to mention the Tascam may likely be overkill).

Any thoughts/recommendations you guys?

beatkilla:
I prefer the Sony PCM-M10.

Here is one on Ebay for decent Buy It Now price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/USED-SONY-Portable-Audio-Recorder-Linear-PCM-Recorder-PCM-M10-Black-F-S-from-JP/233004797033?epid=1841443800&hash=item36402b0c69:g:qpQAAOSwz05b64NJ:rk:2:pf:0&LH_BIN=1

MakersMarc:
That’s about the best deal you’ll see. Great deck

rocksuitcase:

--- Quote from: beatkilla on November 15, 2018, 12:06:16 AM ---I prefer the Sony PCM-M10.

Here is one on Ebay for decent Buy It Now price.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/USED-SONY-Portable-Audio-Recorder-Linear-PCM-Recorder-PCM-M10-Black-F-S-from-JP/233004797033?epid=1841443800&hash=item36402b0c69:g:qpQAAOSwz05b64NJ:rk:2:pf:0&LH_BIN=1

--- End quote ---
agree. the M-10 is perfect for your uses. Decent omni internals and solid mini jack pre amp to my ears.
the Tascam DR-100MKIII is also good for the price, but about twice the size and definitely tough to fit in a shirt pocket which I can do with the M-10

MakersMarc:
New  Sony A10 looks promising,  check the “recorders” forum, there’s even a couple of comps to M10.

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