Thanks for the replies. You're right, I should have put a budget out there. I've read lots of good stuff about the Nagra and Sound Devices, but they are out of my league. I'm hoping to keep the dmp3 and go line-in into, say, a sony pcm-m10 or edirol R09hr. The microtrack II looks great with the 1/4" line ins, but I've read here that many don't like it. I'm not sure what the differences are with line-ins with these smaller recorders as far as noise goes. Most line-ins are 1/8". The only cables I've seen for dual 1/4 to 1/8 are TS, not TRS. I imagine that means it's unbalanced. Would that be a problem? It would be a short run, less than 3'.