Everyone is correct about the m10 limiter-it does not work like the D1's limiter and is less sophisticated, but it does seem to work well. I leave my limiter on, just in case, but you normally shouldn't need a limiter when recording in 24 bits because this allows you to set levels very conservatively. Thus I don't think the limiter is a major selling point.
I have used the PCM D1 since it came out it 2006 until I switched last year to the Sound Devices 702. I have used it for dozens of recording of acoustic music. The Operating Instructions Manual states that the limiter cannot prevent clipping “when audio over 20dB is input.” This is supposed to result in clipping. In my experience clipping under such conditions is extremely rare. Instead, what the limiter does when its capacity is exceeded is to create a “hole-in-the sound.” This has a split second lag time: the sound starts to peak, and then disappears for a second. When people start applauding around you, you get sound punctured by multiple holes. This sound can drive you to suicide and the only way to edit such a recording is to quickly fade off. If people start to applaud at the concluding chords or when the singer finished his bit but the orchestra goes on, the recording is as good as ruined. In addition, any sudden loud sound can trigger the “hole-in-the sound.” In a performance where the director had the chorus flog the stage (with whips), every whip shot triggered a “hole-in-the sound.” The clipping that would have been caused by applause or by the whip shots would have been easily dealt with in the editing (and the clipped sound is not so unpleasant), but with the limiter on the recording was ruined. Every time I used the limiter the recording was ruined, because if you use levels high enough to need it you are bound to hit spots that exceed its capacity; safe levels outside the reach of the “hole-in-the sound” would in reality be outside the reach of the limiter, because you can’t plan without wide safety margins anyway. This past week I played for the first time a Shostakovich Sym#6 that I taped with the limiter on in 2006, but haven’t listened to until now (I taped the event for another part of the concert.) The symphony has the usual Shostakovich outbursts, so in addition to holes in the sound there where many occasions where you hear the limiter kicking in after a split second delay and lowering the sound levels abruptly – this recording is ruined. A friend who listened to these recordings with “holes-in-the sound” and sudden lowering of volume after a split second delay said this is the same limiter he heard on recordings made on ancient equipment or something like that – I can’t remember the details.
Another horror of the limiter is that editing files taped with the limiter on exposes or created electronic artifacts. For example, a soprano hit a very loud high note and you were sitting right in front of her. The limiter brought that under control and there is no clipping or “hole-in-the sound”, but you still want to manually edit the levels in that spot down because it’s still unbearable – when you try to play around with this segment that is already adulterated by the limiter you get high pitched clipping artifacts or other sounds from hell – you can’t touch such files.
So the limiter is a dangerous and useless function. It doesn’t even have the limited use that the primitive “Automatic Gain Control” function on HiMD’s had – with AGC I could tape a theatre play sitting way back in the balcony and get the delivered text as if recorded from the front row, because it automatically equalized everything. The PCM D1 does not have that circuit.
The only way to tape right is 24 bit and safe levels.
Noam
Topic: Marantz PMD620 VS Sony PCM-M10 (Read 13490 times)