For these recorders than offer 48 phantom power to power mics, are they a good enough replacement something like the Naiant Tinybox or other preamps? I am new to using premaps and moving toward taping with mics that need phantom power, and I thought only a preamp could provide that. Can the Roland or Olympus (or other recorders) provide the same functions of powering the mics and allowing gain adjustments as a preamp does? Am I better off with an external preamp due to higher quality than what the recorders offer?
Is the battery power enough to power the recorder and external mics for a number of hours?
Sorry for the newbie questions!
To answer the easy, objective questions, yes, these decks with XLR inputs that say they provide 48V phantom power are replacing the need for an external preamp, because the deck it serving that function. You can still adjust levels and all that as you would with an external preamp (though not always L/R balance, but with today's post-processing equipment, that's not critical.
To answer the other questions, "it depends".
Battery life: All the decks are different, and the current draw of various mics is different. I can tell you that my DR-40 seems to be able to provide 3-5hrs with phantom power on using different types of mics. You can also buy external batteries for it or any of the other units. Tascam happens to make their own AA battery sled, which is probably useful.
Are you "better off" with an all-in-one?
- In terms of convenience, of course you are. It's one box instead of two, therefore one less failure point, one less thing to connect, one less thing to carry. That said, the tinybox is very small, and it plus an M10 is not much bigger than most of these all-in-ones.
- In terms of flexibility, no. Obviously if you have a separate recorder and preamp, you can interchange the two as you need. With the all-in-one, you're stuck with just that. Of course, you could always run an external pre with an all-in-one, but that kind of renders the point of having it moot.
- In terms of sound, the internal pres in these consumer-grade recorders are a lot better than they used to be (better than, for example, the stuff in the original Edirol R-1 by lightyears). Of course, they vary by unit, and they probably vary with how their pres "like" different types of mics. It also matters what you record. If you are recording chamber music or orchestras or something with tons of dynamics and detail, then I'd be willing to bet the all-in-one isn't ideal - though admittedly, I have never A/B'd an all-in-one at this level vs. a tinybox. If you record metal shows or the PA systems of loud rock concerts, I'm not sure it makes that much of a difference. And as I said, it matters what mics you run. Some mics seem to pair well with lots of pres; some do not. For example, I found that the Microtech-Gefell mics I briefly owned just sounded absolutely awful with Naiant's pre. Those mics seem to really need a super-warm preamp to get the most out of them. Other mics seem more forgiving - I think AKG's mics seem to sound pretty good with a wide variety of things.
If you want 4 tracks and are willing to run an external pre, the DR-2D would seem like a good bet, since you can run a tinybox with it and take board feeds on the other two channels.
If you don't really care about 4 tracks but are willing to run an external pre, in the price range I think you are looking for, it's hard to beat tinybox>PCM-M10 or Edirol R-5. The M10 and R-05 are both higher quality than the stuff Tascam makes, as well as easier to use.
If you want a 4 track and don't want to buy external pres, I think it gets hard for you unless you go way up in price. The Edirol R-26 has "6 tracks" but 4 of them are internal mics. I think generally the 4-track options with stuff like the Zoom H4N and others presuppose you run a board feed into the XLRs plus the deck's internal mics. If placed properly, and in an ideal situation, those mics can be "OK" but not many folks here would recommend using them unless you have to.
Beyond that, the next cheapest multitrack that has its own internal pres is the Tascam DR-680. I trash that thing in every thread about decks, so I won't go back into it here. If you think that's an option for you, read up on it. It definitely gives you the most tracks for the least money.
Topic: options for 2 or 4 track recorder with XLR line ins? (Read 14913 times)