Topic: which flash recorder?

[jagraham]

so in one day of posting here i have discovered that dats and MDs are obsolete.  i have found several options for a flash recorder, such as JB3 and zoom h2.  what are the best options for a flash recorder?  it would be nice to have mp3 playback but the main focus is a nice recorder.  i also have read that church mics work well?  where are retailers to buy something like a JB3, are they not in production any more?

[Belexes]

There are used JB3's in the Yardsale of this forum all the time. Look there.  I have a preference for the R-09 and picked up one used in the Yardsale.  The only drawback of an R-09 is the fact the input jack may fail and the unit would need to be sent out for repairs.  This has yet to happen to me (knock on wood).  Another drawback now that I think of it is that there is no digi-in.

Chris Church mics come highly recommended along with his pre-amps.  Package deals can be found in the Retail section of the forum.

[tms]

Budget?  And these aren't really flash recorders....

DAT: no idea on cost but they were the standard for a long long time.  High quality recorders for sure.

Used MD on ebay: $10 - 40 ?
Guessing on price, but then you need to get your tunes into your PC unless you want to go analog out to analog into your soundcard.  Definetly do-able but who knows how much you lose in the compression and D/A to A/D conversions?

JB3 in TS yard sale:
$85 - $100?  Pretty big, about the size of a portable cd player, record to wav, get to PC over USB or Firewire. Works with XP, maybe not Vista, records and plays mp3's.  Discontinued but a lot out there for sale.  Removable battery unique to JB3, two battery bays give 6-7 hours of recording.

iRiver with RockBox installed: Also discontinued but out there for sale, load RockBox and they make good recorders onto their internal hard drive, USB connection to PC, but is it Vista compatible?  About same price as JB3, but smaller.  Uses an internal battery.

Zoom H2:  $200
Small, records onto Secure Digital cards, powered by 2AA batteries, has apparently very good built in mics.  Doesn't do seamless 2gb split, mic and line inputs reportedly are not very forgiving and are easily overloaded, takes a long time to boot up and make file splits.  No optical in, analog only.

Edirol R-09: $320 on ebay, $400 msrp
Small, records onto Secure Digital cards, powered by 2AA batteries, built in mics.  Seamless 2gb split, supposedly shuts down nicely when batteries run dead without losing file, reportedly records 11 hours on a pair of AA rechargables.  Seems pretty bullet proof. No optical in, analog only.

I'm not familiar with the ones above this price range.

so in one day of posting here i have discovered that dats and MDs are obsolete.  i have found several options for a flash recorder, such as JB3 and zoom h2.  what are the best options for a flash recorder?  it would be nice to have mp3 playback but the main focus is a nice recorder.  i also have read that church mics work well?  where are retailers to buy something like a JB3, are they not in production any more?

[Rick]

Budget?  And these aren't really flash recorders....

DAT: no idea on cost but they were the standard for a long long time.  High quality recorders for sure.

Used MD on ebay: $10 - 40 ?
Guessing on price, but then you need to get your tunes into your PC unless you want to go analog out to analog into your soundcard.  Definetly do-able but who knows how much you lose in the compression and D/A to A/D conversions?

JB3 in TS yard sale:
$85 - $100?  Pretty big, about the size of a portable cd player, record to wav, get to PC over USB or Firewire. Works with XP, maybe not Vista, records and plays mp3's.  Discontinued but a lot out there for sale.  Removable battery unique to JB3, two battery bays give 6-7 hours of recording.

iRiver with RockBox installed: Also discontinued but out there for sale, load RockBox and they make good recorders onto their internal hard drive, USB connection to PC, but is it Vista compatible?  About same price as JB3, but smaller.  Uses an internal battery.

Zoom H2:  $200
Small, records onto Secure Digital cards, powered by 2AA batteries, has apparently very good built in mics.  Doesn't do seamless 2gb split, mic and line inputs reportedly are not very forgiving and are easily overloaded, takes a long time to boot up and make file splits.  No optical in, analog only.

Edirol R-09: $320 on ebay, $400 msrp
Small, records onto Secure Digital cards, powered by 2AA batteries, built in mics.  Seamless 2gb split, supposedly shuts down nicely when batteries run dead without losing file, reportedly records 11 hours on a pair of AA rechargables.  Seems pretty bullet proof. No optical in, analog only.

I'm not familiar with the ones above this price range.

so in one day of posting here i have discovered that dats and MDs are obsolete.  i have found several options for a flash recorder, such as JB3 and zoom h2.  what are the best options for a flash recorder?  it would be nice to have mp3 playback but the main focus is a nice recorder.  i also have read that church mics work well?  where are retailers to buy something like a JB3, are they not in production any more?

You might want to look into the new MicroTrack II too

[Roving Sign]

Zoom H2:  $200
Small.............Doesn't do seamless 2gb split..........

Has this been confirmed? or does it use the 4gb limit?

[digifish_music]

Zoom H2 or R-09 are both great places to start. Although I have an R-09, from what I have read and heard the H2 seems a better place to start for the beginner who has nothing. Why? The internal mics make better recordings than the internal mics in the R-09, which are frankly too noisy to record anything but very loud sources.

---after a recorder where do you want to go?---

-Better microphones -

The next step up for either of those is to get some binaural/small mics. The Sound Professional SP-TFB-2's @ $69 are the logical next-step up, they will plug straight into the mic-in of either unit and run off the plug-in power, nothing else needed, - a big jump in recording quality. 

Along this path are also mics like those from Church Audio , similar to Sound Professionals or Sonic Studios gear, which probably sits toward the top of the binaural tree....well there is always, the Neumann binaural head but that is difficult to smuggle into a venue and more importantly ridiculously expensive (10K ish)   

Not withstanding the amazing results the binaural path can yield (BTW you don't need to record binaurally, you can position those small mics any way you want).

-Better mic-preamp -

The next step is to get an external mic preamp and go in through the line-in and also to consider some larger condenser microphones. The options are almost limitless. I personally use an Sound Devices MixPre (not cheap, but clearly, to my ears one of the best mic preamps I have used) with an R-09.

-Even better mics-

After the external mic preamp, preferably with phantom power, you will now have access to more microphones than you will know what to do with. The best bet is to pick something popular from this forum.

This is where I ended up for field-recording.



Mics in this shot are a Rode NT4 (...because it fits in a blimp and works great as a single-point stereo mic) and Audio Technica At3032 pair. Caveat: I use the above to make mainly  field-recordings of nature sounds and controlled recordings of acoustic instruments in studio settings.

digifish

[Ozpeter]

It so much depends on exactly what tasks you want the tool to perform.  That's what all these devices are - tools best for specific ranges of purposes.  There's no "best" - it depends on not only the task but the user.  More info on your requirements would be helpful.

Has this been confirmed?

The H2 splits at 2Gb and takes about 20 seconds to do it (in my tests).