I'm really tempted to order one of these units...
Still waiting for more real world experience from others.
how's the external hirose> battery experience ? is any one sure of pin assignments?
I have been using the Hirose 4 pin connection. Works like a charm and have yet to drain any Ni batteries. Doing past video work and having plenty of the Ni batteries, I had invested in a Cable Techniques Battery Bud II, of which I run the Hirose power to the F8, SD552 & SD MixPre-D at the same time, all in the Petrol bag. A lot of stuff to say the least but it covers most situations I run into during a recording, leaving options to run thru the 552 as a Pre, direct to the F8 or the MixPre-D in MS mode, of which I have been running as a completely separate recording source using the AES3 out to the S/PDIF of the Marantz PMD661.
If you happen to have the old vid cam Ni batteries, then the Hirose power is a natural progression without having to re-invest in a new power source.
The recordings I am doing for the most part, are for bands and musicians of which I have been asked not to post. The recorder is definitely getting use, and has been real easy to operate....absolutely no complaints! Maybe one...I wish I had more shows I could record in the past month that I could share here!!!
[EDIT ADD]: I wanted to note and add that I have not run the Hirose connector for longer that 2.5 hr runs, so I can not really boast of the "total" battery time. I will do a test on that this eve. for the results while running the MixPre-D, SD552 and the F8 all off of one NP-1 Style NiCd battery.