For a while now, I've been giving serious thought to the SD 702. I'm being held back for a number of reasons:
Firstly, obviously, it's very expensive. That in itself isn't a problem, but for the other reasons.
It has no USB 2 or 3, only firewire. This might seem like nit picking, but I transfer via USB all the time, I'd miss it. Worse, I've heard that the FW connection is quite unstable and that if you pull it out wrong, it can blow the board on the SD. This direct from the SD support centre, which isn't that encouraging.
Because I have no eye sight, I need a way to gang both gains, so that I'm recording in stereo with the same levels on either side. That's not an issue in itself I understand this can be done, but then the second gain knob becomes the balance knob. Again not an issue, but from what SD tech support tell me, there's no way of knowing when that knob is in the middle, no knotch or groove or indent so you can line it up. I'd be forever worried that I didn't have it set right, although I have thought of getting a sighted person to set it for me and then simply taping over it once it's resessed.
The battery options on the 702 confuse me. I've heard with a decent battery in there you can get about 10 hours with moderately hungry phantom powered mics, then again some people say 3 hours, so it's difficult to tell. HOpefuly with a flash card it would be a lot longer than 3 hours.
Finally, I know it is perhaps a silly thing to say, but the unit came out almost 11 years ago from what I understand. Surely SD has something up their sleaves which is newer? I know they recently released another field mixer, but I was thinking of a small updated 702 type recorder. Is it perhaps worth waiting a few months to see what else they come up with? are there any alternatives that sound just as good and are very very small??