Topic: TEAM Marantz PMD 660 (Part II)

[danlynch]

continued from:

http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,33210.0.html

[Corbin]

.

[tfs8271]

hello

[danlynch]

From the previous thread:

***********************

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from: d5 on May 01, 2007, 09:37:40 PM
Quote from: danlynch on April 30, 2007, 04:00:51 PM
Battery meter.  Using rechargeable LaCrosse (charged with the LaCrosse charger).  The meter went down to half-level within a short period of time (maybe 1/2 hour), but stayed at half for the rest of the recording, and was still at half after a 2-hour recording (including phantom powering the dpa's).


I'm guessing the battery type was set to akaline. Alkaline drain differantly than NiMH rechargables, so having the battery type set wrong won't effect the runtime, but it will effect the way meter display because of a wrong interpretation.



Bingo.  Good call.  I've reset them for NiMH.


**********************


Last night I ran the 660 (after properly setting the battery indicator) and the battery meter read full after two hours of recording--including phantom power on the DPA's.
I must say again that this is an extremely easy recorder to run, and the power on the rechargables is quite encouraging.

BCM (with -20dB MIC ATTN engaged!) handled some really powerful PA bursts last night without any clipping or crackling. 

Loving this 660!

[paullySC]

From the previous thread:

***********************

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from: d5 on May 01, 2007, 09:37:40 PM
Quote from: danlynch on April 30, 2007, 04:00:51 PM
Battery meter.  Using rechargeable LaCrosse (charged with the LaCrosse charger).  The meter went down to half-level within a short period of time (maybe 1/2 hour), but stayed at half for the rest of the recording, and was still at half after a 2-hour recording (including phantom powering the dpa's).


I'm guessing the battery type was set to akaline. Alkaline drain differantly than NiMH rechargables, so having the battery type set wrong won't effect the runtime, but it will effect the way meter display because of a wrong interpretation.



Bingo.  Good call.  I've reset them for NiMH.


**********************


Last night I ran the 660 (after properly setting the battery indicator) and the battery meter read full after two hours of recording--including phantom power on the DPA's.
I must say again that this is an extremely easy recorder to run, and the power on the rechargables is quite encouraging.

BCM (with -20dB MIC ATTN engaged!) handled some really powerful PA bursts last night without any clipping or crackling. 

Loving this 660!

It certainly is a great box, are you going to get the ACM at some point?

[danlynch]

No, I believe the BCM is best suited for my varied recording needs.  I record a lot of different types of music.

[shukenja]

i just ran mine with different dB setting to see whats tha best solution.

im headin northern ireland tomorrow, and will try to get to some nice spaces to record an ocean from the cliffs, or something to that extent. pure field works anyway...

got my pair of mics ready in backpack already

and indeed, its a very good machine.

[phr]

If anyone cares, I just popped a Sandisk Extreme III 16gb CF card into mine and did a few test recordings (just a few seconds each in different formats).  Worked fine.  I haven't done any longer recordings yet so don't know what will happen past the 2GB mark or whatever.  But it claims to have 284 hours(!) available for stereo mp3 recording, or 25 hours for stereo 44.1 khz WAV. 

[stevetoney]

If anyone cares, I just popped a Sandisk Extreme III 16gb CF card into mine and did a few test recordings (just a few seconds each in different formats).  Worked fine.  I haven't done any longer recordings yet so don't know what will happen past the 2GB mark or whatever.  But it claims to have 284 hours(!) available for stereo mp3 recording, or 25 hours for stereo 44.1 khz WAV. 

That's a start...but I'm wondering about longer recordings.  When I first got some slower, cheaper 4GB media for the Edirol R-09, it was recording just great for an hour or so and then for whatever reason it just spazzed out from there...not even at the 2GB point...and it definitely was the media that caused the problem and not the recorder (most likely the speed of the card).  So, that makes me just kinda leary about the larger cards and, for me, I won't be satisfied enough to actually buy the higher capacity media until others actually run flawlessly for a few recordings, so if possible, please keep reporting your field results.

For now, I'll still stick with 4 GB and smaller, although I really like the idea of 8GB because the record length puts you beyond 99% of the reasonable lengths of a 'music night out' which might include a backup band and a headliner.

In the meantime, thanks for this update and any future updates on in-the-field results you get.

[paullySC]

If anyone cares, I just popped a Sandisk Extreme III 16gb CF card into mine and did a few test recordings (just a few seconds each in different formats).  Worked fine.  I haven't done any longer recordings yet so don't know what will happen past the 2GB mark or whatever.  But it claims to have 284 hours(!) available for stereo mp3 recording, or 25 hours for stereo 44.1 khz WAV. 

That's a start...but I'm wondering about longer recordings.  When I first got some slower, cheaper 4GB media for the Edirol R-09, it was recording just great for an hour or so and then for whatever reason it just spazzed out from there...not even at the 2GB point...and it definitely was the media that caused the problem and not the recorder (most likely the speed of the card).  So, that makes me just kinda leary about the larger cards and, for me, I won't be satisfied enough to actually buy the higher capacity media until others actually run flawlessly for a few recordings, so if possible, please keep reporting your field results.

For now, I'll still stick with 4 GB and smaller, although I really like the idea of 8GB because the record length puts you beyond 99% of the reasonable lengths of a 'music night out' which might include a backup band and a headliner.

In the meantime, thanks for this update and any future updates on in-the-field results you get.

I'm all about having more than one card. Don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. I have 2 2gig cards and may purchase one more card (either 2 or 4 gig).

[tfs8271]

1, 2 & 4 works great.

[pmonk66]

I am waiting to try out the busman mod on the 660

[phr]

If anyone cares, I just popped a Sandisk Extreme III 16gb CF card into mine and did a few test recordings (just a few seconds each in different formats).  Worked fine.  I haven't done any longer recordings yet so don't know what will happen past the 2GB mark or whatever.  But it claims to have 284 hours(!) available for stereo mp3 recording, or 25 hours for stereo 44.1 khz WAV. 

That's a start...but I'm wondering about longer recordings.  When I first got some slower, cheaper 4GB media for the Edirol R-09, it was recording just great for an hour or so and then for whatever reason it just spazzed out from there...not even at the 2GB point...and it definitely was the media that caused the problem and not the recorder (most likely the speed of the card).  So, that makes me just kinda leary about the larger cards and, for me, I won't be satisfied enough to actually buy the higher capacity media until others actually run flawlessly for a few recordings, so if possible, please keep reporting your field results.

For now, I'll still stick with 4 GB and smaller, although I really like the idea of 8GB because the record length puts you beyond 99% of the reasonable lengths of a 'music night out' which might include a backup band and a headliner.

In the meantime, thanks for this update and any future updates on in-the-field results you get.

With my 45x 4gb card I've made several mp3 recordings over 5 hours long (basically limited by the battery runtime--someday I'll set up an external power supply) with no problem.  Of course that's just a few hundred MB.  I like to record what amounts to very extended jam sessions and it's quite useful to me to be able to run the recorder for 8+ hours at a time nonstop, which would be 5 or 6 GB in a single recording in WAV format.  Of course I don't know yet how I'll go about editing such a monstrous recording.  Maybe I'll try running the recorder that long just as a test, sometime this week or so.

I'd rather use a single large card than a bunch of smaller ones for reliability reasons.  Yeah there's some chance of the card messing up, but I figure with smaller cards there's an even larger chance of messing up the cards and/or recorder through the additional removals and insertions in the field (static electricity, fragile pins inside the unit that can get bent up, etc).  As it is, with 16GB, I should be able to record a whole weekend event leaving the card in the 660, removing it only after I get home.

[Keyser Soze]

I am waiting to try out the busman mod on the 660

What does that mod cover?  Is there an info link posted somewhere?

[stevetoney]

I am waiting to try out the busman mod on the 660

What does that mod cover?  Is there an info link posted somewhere?

Pretty sure no link, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading somewhere that it's gonna sound quite like the BMP2+ mod on the UA-5.  Regardless, I know from personal experience that Chris does great work and for $160 to $180 or so, the mod will improve the sound of the 660 onboard preamp a BUNCH.  With regards to the BMP2+ mod, it tends towards transparent and is very clean, true, and beautiful sounding.  (For a sample, there are a few recordings on the archive with the BMP2+ mod.)

BTW, regarding your question about 'what the mod covers', I also rthink I remember reading that it does most of the same things that the Oade ACM mod does in terms of changing-out stock electronics of the 660.  You can read about what the Oade ACM mod removes at the Oade website. 

I think the biggest difference between the Busman mod and the Oade mod are the price (Busman is quite a bit less and you don't have to have purchase a box directly from Oade) and the sound...and you'll probably want to listen to both if you are really really particular about the sound.  Not that the Oade/Busman is better or worse; they're just different.