It would be interesting to see how the M10 and R-09HR compare in terms of noise floor.
OK, I just measured the noise floor, both the Edirol R09 and the Sony M10. I put a 1.2k resistor to short the mic inputs, turned off plug in power, set mic gain to minimum (and low sens). I got a reading of approx -76dB (peak). It seems like the bottom three or four bits are noise.
This confirms my earlier suspicions that there is really no point in recording 24bit on these. If you record 24bits, you're just getting an extra 8 bits of noise!
I've tried this on my other recorders too. Has anyone actually got a lower noise floor? How about so-called professional gear, like Apogee MiniME or Grace V3?
Richard