Hi everyone, sorry for the lateness, been busy with a bit of work, now, I'm not a sound guy, just an indie filmmaker, so my test may not be right... However, as pointed out to me at another forum, I've done the same test twice and the result is still Tascam DR-60D has less noise, this Sunday we are doing one more test with a Sound Engineering between the two devices. He did tested the Tascam earlier at a film festival and liked how it sounded (cleaner than his H4N).
For practicality wise, the Tascam mounted under the DSLR is better for a one-man or two-men crew operations as the camera man can monitor the video/audio without too many head movements. Zoom will requires a hotshoe mount or a cage or a magic arm so you can easily see the settings (once tripod is set on level for filmming). But of course, having a good sound guy definately helps.
The previous two tests I've done, here's how it was set:
- Mics: Audio Technica AT8035 and Sennheiser MKE600
- Talent: PC Laptop playing via it's speaker system of a feature film I've made in 2005 and released in 2007, I have looped one of the early scene which contains dialogue and music
- Distance: both secured on two mic stands and about 2.5' away from the source (trying to set as a 'on location' distance test)
- Room - quiet, this is a room created for ADR usage, it's not 100% noise free, but it has 90% coverage. We have done many ADR in this room for indie films and they all sounded great (for filmmaking usage)
- me: sitting in the other room looking at the mics via a full open window.
Plugged Sennheiser on T1 and AT on T2
Devices: Tascam DR-60D and Zoom H6: no limiter set, no cut of set. both uses batteries, both devices provide phantom power to the mics, no -20 padswitch turned on, no backup tracks recording (I thought the H6 only do backup tracks on L/R - which is the module part).
Tascam DR-60D set : Gain at Mid, knob dial to 3 o'clock line
Zoom H6 set : dial knob to 5-6 level
recorded level, both sounded great, brought it into Premiere cs6 with monitor speaker, listening it, Sennheiser mic is more sensitive and provides lounder volume, both sounded great. Did a quick normalization with -12db, Zoom's has noise, Tascam barely can hear it.
At one forum, I was told that the dial on the Zoom was set too low and that everyone said to set it on 7-8 would be best, so I tried the same scenario test again. Except this time to set the Zoom H6's dial to 7-8 area
Without normalizing, and bringing it just as it is into Premiere CS6, Zoom H6 definately has noise, then I did a normalize to -12db on the Zoom's audio track, it still display greater noise level than the Tascam.
We are taping this Sunday's test (video/audio) and we shall know the result