And since the R-44's are CF Driven ONLY
Not CF cards, SDHC cards. Nitpicky I know but there is a difference. Same basic function, different format. Personally I'd much rather deal with SDHC cards than CF.
Oh, didnt realize that, thanks for teh clarification 
So, why would you rather deal w/ SDHC cards vs. CF cards 
I have been suing CF cards in my 722 for over 2 years and have had nothing but great success SO FAR (*knocks On wood*) 
They are the way things are going. You can buy a SDHC card at most department stores, they probably either don't or soon wont stock CF cards. If you travel to a festival and leave your media at home, somebody nearby will have SDHC cards for sale. If I'm not mistaken, SDHC cards are much cheaper too. I saw a 4GB SDHC card on sale for $5 in a recent advertisement. SDHC cards are smaller and lighter. If you are going to a festival you can carry all you need in your pocket and wont know they are there. Any device that can take SDHC cards can also use the older SD cards in a pinch.
The SDHC cards have fewer and more robust contacts. Less to go wrong in that dept. You can get cheap thumb sized USB SDHC card readers so you don't have to use your recorder or a special drive bay in your computer to transfer files and you can easily use the cards as a thumb drive when needed. That means that if I record a band and they want a copy and have a laptop (Mac or PC), I can just pop the SDHC card into the reader and plug it into their USB slot and give them a copy.
And last but not least, SDHC cards fit my recorder and my digital camera and soon my video camera. SD and SDHC micro cards fit my MP3 player and with a cheap adapter can be used in my other devices.
I don't know about speed comparisons though and with CF you can get small hard drives that will fit in the socket. I don't know the max capacity of CF cards but SDHC can theoretically go to at least 64GB, 32 GB are readily available (the device you use it in may have its own limit). I also don't know if there is a file size limitation with CF, with SDHC it depends on the device and how the card is formatted.
Also I have seen people have problems getting whatever device they were using to recognize a CF card on several occasions. I watched a panic stricken taper have fits trying to get his recorder to recognize a CF card so that he could grab an encore. I've seen another taper have his CF card loose contact several times during a show. To be fair, I have heard of some devices having some problems with SDHC cards too, but I've never actually witnessed it.
I also don't know how recorders that use CF cards handle their file organization. I do know I can take an SDHC card out of my camera with pictures on it and pop it into my recorder and record audio with no problems.
Topic: 4-track field recorder? (Read 6465 times)