Just used my 680 Sat. night for the 2nd time. The first time it crapped out every time I started recording, and I discovered the next day I was using a card that it wouldn't accept. My fault. The other night, everything seemed to be going well. I was recording a jazz ensemble, using 6 mics, all on phantom power, and powering the deck with a 12V battery I bought on Ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&rt=nc&nma=true&item=170788244991&si=VQP%252FFqGHRh%252BQeD9euFRfnA9fwFY%253D&viewitem=&sspagename=ADME%3AL%3AOC%3AUS%3A1123&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc#ht_1919wt_1139Last week, I ran the deck for several hours with this battery before trying it on location, and it worked fine. The other night, when I started recording, everything seemed to be working great, but after about 25 minutes of the first set, the record levels completely dropped out, all at once, on all 6 mics, while the deck continued recording. After momentarily freaking out, I stopped recording, and then started again...again, no sound. At that point, I powered the unit down, let it sit for 30 seconds or so, then powered it back up and started recording. This time, there was audio, but the levels were outrageously overmodulated on all the mics. When i looked at the display, I noticed the machine had electronically boosted the level on each mic to full blast, so while it was rolling, I potted down each mic, continued recording, and from that point on, things were fine. The set went for another 25 minutes, at which point, I powered the unit down, waited for the 2nd set to start, and recorded the entire 2nd set with no trouble at all.
Without reading 95 pages worth of posts about the 680, is this a similar problem to what others have been experiencing? In the end, I was fortunate, because I was able to make an edit in the music and make the problem sound unnoticeable, but I know I won't always be that lucky. Just wondering if I should send this back to Tascam, and if so, does anyone have a contact there who is familiar with the issues people are having with these decks?