Topic: new marantz PMD 661

[dactylus]

4 to 6 seconds is a miniscule amount of time from powering on to "record able". PLENTY of time to get ready to rock...  I'm sure that my sd722 is at least that much time too.
 

I guess 4-6 secs is what to expect, but acceptable? Hmm... I can't see how a digital camera can be ready to shoot in 0,5 seconds and a digital audio recorder sometimes needs up to 15 secs (like the Microtracker 24/96) to record-mode. It's basically the same digital information being saved onto digital memory cards.

If you know what to record (like when taping concerts) 4-6 seconds is nothing. But when out on the streets/fields, trying to capture city/nature-sounds, timing is the key. It's a pretty big difference between 5 and 0,5 seconds when it comes to recording a passing train for instance.

I work for a railroad, the signal dept, trains can be heard a long ways off before they get to you.  Also observing train signals will let you know if a train is coming.  Besides, just having the unit "on" will not drain the battery to any significant amount I would think. 

Apparently the "engineering" required to record digital data is NOT the same for audio devices and digital cameras.  If audio engineers could have the same instantaneous "ON" for audio recorders as there is for digital cameras I'm sure that they would.  There must be a cost factor or physical reason for the lack of instantaneous on with digital audio recorders.  I am not an electrical engineer.  I would suggest that you contact someone in engineering at a company like Sound Devices, which is responsive to customer inquiries, and ask them for the technical reasons that audio recorders aren't instantly ready to record...  Let us know what you find out and good luck in your field recording efforts.

 

[Luminousoctaves]

I work for a railroad, the signal dept, trains can be heard a long ways off before they get to you.  Also observing train signals will let you know if a train is coming. 

It was just an example. And were I live it's almost impossible to predict the commuter train coming 

Besides, just having the unit "on" will not drain the battery to any significant amount I would think. 

That depends if your mic preamps+monitoring is active or not. I don't know how the 661 works, but if only the menu is active in standby-ON-mode you are right of course.

I would suggest that you contact someone in engineering at a company like Sound Devices, which is responsive to customer inquiries, and ask them for the technical reasons that audio recorders aren't instantly ready to record... 

Will do!

[Luminousoctaves]

This is the answer from SD, I have also emailed Marantz Pro-section the same inquiry:
I have no ideas about why the 661 would take longer to boot up than a camera, but that sounds like a very good question for Marantz. Every piece of equipment is different, so boot up times will certainly vary.
Best Regards, Joe Ramos, Sound Devices, LLC

[Mike R.]

I guess 4-6 secs is what to expect, but acceptable? Hmm... I can't see how a digital camera can be ready to shoot in 0,5 seconds and a digital audio recorder sometimes needs up to 15 secs (like the Microtracker 24/96) to record-mode. It's basically the same digital information being saved onto digital memory cards.

I do embedded software. I have done consumer electronics (not at the moment)...

It's not quite accurate to say that both devices are saving digital info onto memory cards, they both do that, but the basic systems aren't that similar.  The 4-6 second time you're seeing is basically the time to boot up a computer - for both the camera and the audio device.  There's a microcontroller of some sort and a bunch of peripheral devices which may or may not be on the same chip as the micro.  Those peripheral devices need to be initialized, and depending on what that initialization involves (I have no idea here!) that might take time.  Because of several design choices, some of those actions may or may not happen in parallel.  Some of those design choices include the operating system running on the micro (if there is an OS at all!), what kind of interface exists to all the peripheral devices, how much self-test is performed before starting everything up.  That last item is always interesting.  Self test takes time, but makes it more likely that a system will really be able to do its job when it looks ready.

A somewhat flippant answer might be the 4-6 second is OK for an audio device because the market isn't pushing for .5 second boot time, but the photo market has.  There's probably some truth there.  The market seems to have asked for a pre-record capability, lots of devices have that.  The PMD-660 at least has a soft power switch, so when it is 'off' it's in some kind of standby mode.  There are usually power consumption tradeoffs between how fast to come out of standby vs. power consumed in standby.  The pre-record mode certainly could be considered the "high power standby" mode.

I think Marantz has certainly reacted to many of the complaints I've heard (and made!) about the 660 -- 1/8" jacks, no digital in, higher sampling rates and bit depth, maybe sound quality (maybe, initial reports are promising).  The next generation will do something new, exactly what that "something" is will depend on their marketing and engineering departments.

My TV takes more than 6 seconds to boot.  Like the camera and the digital recorder it's got a microcontroller of some sort talking to a bunch of peripherals, this time video and audio processing, and a tuner.  My computer takes a lot longer.

[TomR]

This is the answer from SD, I have also emailed Marantz Pro-section the same inquiry:
I have no ideas about why the 661 would take longer to boot up than a camera, but that sounds like a very good question for Marantz. Every piece of equipment is different, so boot up times will certainly vary.
Best Regards, Joe Ramos, Sound Devices, LLC

Its a pity Joe Ramos did not give the equivalent times (and reasons) for the SD recorders.

Just checked the times for my digital cameras, by switching them on when the second hand of a wall clock was at 0 seconds and examining the fastest first photo I could take, I got the following:-

Fuji Finepix F31fd, point "n" shoot, 4 seconds

Fuji Finepix S6500fd, SLR like point "n" shoot,  4 seconds

Canon 350D SLR,  2.5 seconds

So, by my equipment standards the 661 is no slouch.

Hmmmmmmmm.  I seem to be getting protective about my 661.  Incipient pride of ownership?

BTW, if the 661 is already switched on, but not doing anything, pressing the record button starts the machine recording almost instantaneously.  Activating the "prerecord" function gives a 2 second advantage to those whose reaction times are somewhat slower than an 18 year old's.

All in all it seems the 661 will allow almost instantaneous snapshot recording of happenings during a four hour stroll around town and country.

Cheers
TomR

[Luminousoctaves]

A somewhat flippant answer might be the 4-6 second is OK for an audio device because the market isn't pushing for .5 second boot time, but the photo market has.  There's probably some truth there.

I don't buy that digital audio recorders should have a more complicated self test system than digital cameras. Just look at DV-cameras, they record stereo audio and video... simultaneously. The plastic HDV-camera at my work boots up in 1,5 secs, tops.
I think that demand, as you pointed out, is the main reason.

But it would still be interesting to hear an explaination from Marantz. No answer yet.

TomR:
I just tried the Canon 350D at work. First photo shot under 1 sec from ON. Definitely.

[Luminousoctaves]

Hmmmmmmmm.  I seem to be getting protective about my 661.  Incipient pride of ownership?

I still want the PMD 661 real badly, complaining about boot time is just some kind of therapy for me right now, hehe.

[flintstone]

In audio recorders I've used, the boot time seems directly
related to the size of the flash card you're using.  My guess
is that the recorder OS is taking a look at the card to make
sure it's ready to go. 

Some recorders, the FR-2LE for example, store information on
the card that's used at startup.  This makes the startup time
a little longer than in other models.

Whether the startup time matters depends on how you're
planning to use the recorder, of course.

Flintstone

[JasonSobel]

I placed my order for an oade concert mod PMD-661 today
and I had some discussion about the concert mod vs warm mod for the pmd-661.  (and he told me that with his mother passing away recently, he just hasn't had the time to update the website).

probably not too surprising to anyone, but here is the basic comparison between the two:

The warm 661 sound a lot like the warm ua5 while the concert mod is more like the tmod ua5.
though of course the 661 has better detail than the UA5

and Doug agreed with me that the concert mod would most likely be a better fit with my new beyerdynamic mics (which certainly have a warm or even dark color to them).

[GDfan]

I placed my order for an oade concert mod PMD-661 today
and I had some discussion about the concert mod vs warm mod for the pmd-661.  (and he told me that with his mother passing away recently, he just hasn't had the time to update the website).

probably not too surprising to anyone, but here is the basic comparison between the two:

The warm 661 sound a lot like the warm ua5 while the concert mod is more like the tmod ua5.
though of course the 661 has better detail than the UA5

and Doug agreed with me that the concert mod would most likely be a better fit with my new beyerdynamic mics (which certainly have a warm or even dark color to them).

I had a similar correspondence with Doug today as well =D, I am getting ready to order one this week.
did he mention to you how long before you would get yours?

[JasonSobel]

I had a similar correspondence with Doug today as well =D, I am getting ready to order one this week.
did he mention to you how long before you would get yours?

no, he didn't say how long, but then, I didn't ask.  On the order confirmation page, it does say that "upgraded machines ship in 2 to 4 business days.  Stock machines ship in 1 to 2 business days".  So based on that, I guess I'm expecting next week sometime.  though I wonder if it will take a little longer because Doug has been busy with other stuff and might be playing catch-up a bit?  I don't really know, just speculating here.

[Javier Cinakowski]

This might not be applicable to what you guys are talking about but,...

I noticed that my 660 deck takes almost 10seconds to get the phantom power fired up enough to properly power my mics.  Being that these run on less than 1.5v cell, perhaps there is a votage buffer/convertor that takes a bit to get up to the proper voltage to run the deck...

[kbergend]

I had a similar correspondence with Doug today as well =D, I am getting ready to order one this week.
did he mention to you how long before you would get yours?

no, he didn't say how long, but then, I didn't ask.  On the order confirmation page, it does say that "upgraded machines ship in 2 to 4 business days.  Stock machines ship in 1 to 2 business days".  So based on that, I guess I'm expecting next week sometime.  though I wonder if it will take a little longer because Doug has been busy with other stuff and might be playing catch-up a bit?  I don't really know, just speculating here.

Mine shipped 4 business days after I placed the order, and that was with a backlog for 661 mods ahead of it and right after Doug's mom passed away.  He said they were working overtime to keep up with the current demand.

[Luminousoctaves]

My guess is that the recorder OS is taking a look at the card to make sure it's ready to go.  

That also makes sense. The Microtracker 24/96 reboots everytime a new Compact flash is inserted (which always used to drive me mad) probably because the OS needs to reset and check the card or something. But then again, a compact flash movie cam should do the same...

...but as Javier Cinakowski wrote it might have something to do with powering up the mic preamps, but then again... again... a lot of camcorders have phantom powered mics...

...actually, I give up trying to figure this out.

I agree that in most cases the startup time's not essential, but it just shouldn't be impossible to design an audio recorder with 0,5 sec boot time. Full stop.

[audBall]

Here's a sample...   (74mb)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VGUWMA0I


Phish 3/6/09 "Rift"

Nakamichi CM-1000 (Sank p48 mod) > Oade Concert 661 (-18db engaged)
24/44.1 - Located in OTS, center, ~9-10ft high
Fades applied, +6db gain