OK, now I'm an idiot, I know that.
Please feel free to remind me of that here.
I'm grabbing a bunch of stuff from spaulgal's post over in the yard sale:
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=170449.0and I'll copy and edit a bit to get to the point.
I have a question about some gear in general, but mostly just my obsession with level meters . All other D1 threads are dead, probably rightly so, because A) its not the recorder for ANYthing we do here, and B) Sony dropped it like a hot cake and never supported it after its initial release. Its like the John Carter of sony audio.
Anyway, I used to use a NAK 550 to tape. The old 3 mics version and I loved it. I dug it out and the heads look good. I talked to the local cassette tech in SLC and he can overhaul it and get it back to factory specs for $400. (OW!) It cost $60 to find that out. I absolutely love the metering and controls on that deck, just because I'm getting old and and weird things are seeming more important now. Also, part of me thinks it would be fun to plunk that down on a table and roll tape, even if I had to change the cassettes all the time. But of course you know I'd be transferring everything to digital anyway, so....
When the D1 came out, I remember saying. "I want that just for the meters", but the price point was just stupid. It really just had a handful of great reviews and the "finest single piece of audio gear they ever created" moniker to go to bat for it. Leonard Lombardo pointed out that the A/D circuitry was probably never going to get better than this, but it HAS been 8 or more years since the thing was created.
I currently use Oade-Modded products and various preamps for the job, as well as mics that will always be better than what Sony crammed in the D1, so really, the only reason I can think of that I wish I had a D1 any more is those meters and a fantastic 1/8" in plug. But how fantastic can a 1/8" stereo in jack be? I mean, its doing A>D work with a bunch of circuitry right next to it. That has ALWAYS been bad. I never looked at any of the actual specs, just the stuff people said in reviews.
This machine seems problematic whenever I try to even PRETEND I would buy one. It doesn't even fit in your pocket!
Am I right that Sony never, EVER came up with anything that will allow a card bigger than 4GB in this machine-- plus it has to be their own card; that the mic pattern does not move; that there is no Digital in; that the battery life is the same as the D8...
BUT, again, if that A/D circuitry in the 1/8" jack has still not been surpassed since this model, making that (and old-time level meters) really the only thing that's special about it? And really? Could they really have made a 1/8" in jack so good that they never used it in another model after and all the 1/8" in jacks sony has made since are significantly worse?
If anyone would like to rant about this, I'd love to hear it, because while I know I'm an idiot, and I certainly don't have money to burn, I keep thinking I would love to build a little velcro box that holds an apogee mini MP; DVD battery and a D1, with openings for controls. Of course then I'd have to go somewhere where I could actually USE it.
I did a search for memory cards for the thing and found some chart:
https://docs.sony.com/release/ms_vr_compatibility.pdfwhich leads me to believe I'll be teaching for sticks. I remember hearing that the D50 had a hard time with memory sticks, but at least you got 16GB.
with the D1 you get 4 internal GB and 4 on a memory stick with no cross-memory. So you get 2 hours of 24/96. Then you have to stop and start.
Finally, the only reason that I even think about this recorder is that The BEST recorder for the job on the market now is the PMD661. But its's HUGE. I've swapped out use of that for the R44, since, well, its not THAT much bigger and I get 4 channels (with, unfortunately only 1 digital in). The D1 is slightly smaller than the PMD661 and infinitely less versatile.
My current favorite recorder has been the Korg MR1, and I know that there will someday be another $1000 recorder that I will like, but until its the size of a mirotrack, what's the point?
Do I really only want a D1 because of some level meters and some heresay and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway?
Thanks for listening!
Please feel free to waste a bunch of your time telling me things I ought to know.
(Like, buy a freaking D100 or a retirement plan or something)
http://gearpatrol.com/2012/08/28/sony-pcm-d1/