Hi. Seeing that the price had fallen to around $200, on impulse I bought a Nagra "Mezzo" pocket recorder from Trew Audio. It has functionality similar to the Sony PCM-M10, except that it has separate line and mike input sockets rather than a single socket with sensitivity determined by a menu setting.
Its memory is internal only--no card slot--so the only way to transfer files out or in is via USB. And there's the rub: I can get it to connect to my laptop, but not to my desktop PC. Or rather, it connects to either one--but after a few seconds of being connected to my desktop PC, and recognized as an external storage device (I can even see files and folders on it for a little while), it suddenly fails and locks up the recorder. This happens every time. The only way I can get it unfrozen is to remove a battery. Has anyone else here had this problem?
When time permits, I'll do some noise measurements on it. When I did that with the Sony recorder, which is switchable between 16- and 24-bit recording, the 24-bit mode appeared to have only a <1 dB lower noise floor than the 16-bit mode, which meant that the 24-bit setting was effectively useless. The "Mezzo" has both settings as well, so I'd like to see whether it's simply a nice way to fill up memory faster, or whether it actually offers any potentially audible benefit.
--best regards