I have been using for a while a nice portable rig made by various mics ( naiant X-X, Stereo superlux, Sony ECM 999) going into a littlebox and line-in into R09 hr. Just yesterday I was rehearsing at home and I began hearing a hum, showing in meters as a left channel running at higher level than right. Checked with different mics, checked mics just straight into the recorder ( I have a sort of adapter), same thing. Could still record but with that bad noise and distortion; after a while the meters showed nothing even with the gain cranked up all the way and no more signal. Note that the recorder still works properly with it's internals; no hum or hiss, levels are matched etc. Something has happened to line and to mic input and I suspect it would be very hard to have it serviced, so I it's maybe time for a change and hopefully upgrade a bit.
In the future I'd also like to get a serious stereo mic pair, but not now ( thinking about something in the Neumann K184 league) to couple with a USB interface (also in the future) and an iMac in my home/musician studio for better piano and/or violin recordings but also need a portable and fast setting thing for catching on the fly live concerts of mine. So I have two options about which I need some advice:
1) buy another budget recorder in the same league as R09HR with a decent input in terms of quality ( also A/D quality matters) and run my Littlebox as a preamp. I'd appreciate XLR inputs and maybe more than 2 tracks ( Tascam DR70?) but the overall quality is what I seek . In the future I could get an audio interface like Focusrite or Audient or similar for home recording.
2) Buy a Zoom which may serve both as a standalone recorder and Audio interface. The choice would be between the cheaper H6 ( 400 euros)or the better F6 ( 600 Euros), the only recorders ( Mixpre II is much more expensive in Italy) with USB interface capabilities. As fare as you can tell, would they behave in pc interface-mode just like any dedicated interface like Focusrite Clarett or there would be any trade-off?
For a bit more ( 440 euros) I could get a Tascam 680 mkII which is probably still good despite it's an old model, but it hasn't interface capabilities and with the price we are getting into the one-for all option.
A general question regards also what's happened in past ten years in terms of quality ( circuitry, preamps, converters); a nowadays 200 euros recorder is far better than my Edirol R09hr or still the same performance?
thank you very much for your help
Edit: I modified the title of the thread....incredibly after a couple of days my Edirol got back working. Just tried with an external mic and everything was ok ( it wasn't right after having the issue), then tried back feeding the line input with Naiant littelbox and the issue was there: no signal through the microphone, only noise buzz and hum just slightly increasing with gain, but there also at gain 0.
Then pulled out a 30 years old little and weird little preamplifier which a guy built for me; no phantom, no balanced, fixed gain. That man told me this would just increase the signal by 10 times, don't know how much it is in db....I guess about 30 or so. Worked flawlessly, dead quiet and best sound ever with restrictions imposed by no phantom and the Edirol itself. I'm sorry for my littlebox which I loved but think it would be no worth sending to USA from Europe for service....I have to give up using any phantom powered mic by now but have more time to look around for a new all-in-one- recorder