Best AA batteries out at the moment (R-09)

[fmaderjr]

what are the best 9 volts out there in everyone's opinion? both single-use and/or rechargeable?

As for rechargeables, for his preamps Chris Church recommends only the Maha powerex 9.6 v shown here:
http://www.mahaenergy.com/store/viewitem.asp?idproduct=273

It does need a special charger to charge it to full capacity though. Many of the others are actually 8.4 volts and don't maintain a high enough voltage long enough. Several members have reported good experiences with them and I haven't heard of anyone with complaints.

[Gutbucket]

Powerex (Maha) seems to make good chargers and batteries.  I use their chargers and 9.6V's for my Church Audio preamps and their AA  IMEDION's (which are a low self discharge battery with similar performance to the Sanyo Eneloops AFAIK) in my R-09s and R-44.  One nice feature about their chargers is that they run on 12VDC so overnight fest-charging off a car battery via cig-lighter adapters is easy without a wall wart adapter.

I've been using the same batteries for the past 3-1/2 years and they are still going strong.

I keep thinking it's about time for me to pickup a charger that has some diagnostic functions to manage these as they eventually start to give up the ghost- something like the LaCrosse BC-900 or equivalent, maybe wait for  sale on the Maha one.

[rjp]

Consumer Reports said Kirkland (Costco) alkalines were the best alkilines.  It might be worth a cruise by the library to see what the results of CR tests indicate.  One test is worth a thousand opinions.

We use them at the theatre I run sound for and they are truly great batteries for the price.

Add another vote in favor of the Kirkland AAs. I've been using them for a while now and I'm quite happy with them.

[Since85]

Has anyone tried the NiZn batteries? Looks very promising....

http://www.thomasdistributing.com/shop/batteries--nizn-batteries-c-122_586.html?osCsid=a98rm8a91donrsllit8gi3gna7

[mmadd29]

I have eloops and the LaCrosse charger and it works great for me.

[sunjan]

Has anyone tried the NiZn batteries? Looks very promising....

Might be interesting for some because of the higher nominal voltage.
But for general taper applications, they are inferior because of lower energy density and lower cycle count compared to NiMH (and certainly compared to lithium).
Take a look at the graph, very informative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery#Table_of_rechargeable_battery_technologies

[fmaderjr]

Has anyone tried the NiZn batteries? Looks very promising....

Might be interesting for some because of the higher nominal voltage.
But for general taper applications, they are inferior because of lower energy density and lower cycle count compared to NiMH (and certainly compared to lithium).
Take a look at the graph, very informative:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery#Table_of_rechargeable_battery_technologies

add this thread to the above negative review.
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=118840.0
Definitely not worth the risk for most tapers.

[HarpDoc]

The nizn batteries could be great for recorders that are picky about voltage, such as the Tascam dr-2d. If I hadn't just bought 8 eneloops (which are great), I'd give them a try, since they put out 1.6v rather than 1.2 from nimh.

[Brennan]

Wow I'm quite impressed with the Eneloops. I recorded for a good 3 hours last night and the battery meter hasn't gone down a tick.

[sunjan]

If I hadn't just bought 8 eneloops (which are great), I'd give them a try, since they put out 1.6v rather than 1.2 from nimh.

Just to set things straight, Eneloops are NiMH too. Just different blends of chemistry. MH stands for Metal Hydrid, meaning the composition varies, but they're still NiMH, and all put out the same nominal voltage, 1.2V.
Real life voltage is a different thing, but the average working voltage under load is pretty close.
Where Eneloop really shines is retaining the voltage after hundreds of cycles, but that's another topic of it's own. Check out some curves here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2786015&postcount=7

If you want to look into NiZn, the flashlight guys over at candlepower have dissected pretty much every aspect of them:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=274332

[HarpDoc]

Perhaps my post did not make clear that nizn puts out 1.6v, not nimh.

[yltfan]

I use Powerex AA's in my camera and love them. No hard data, but they seem to last forever.

[guysonic]

When using rechargeables, user do certain setup and routine things for getting reliable longest use/runtimes from these cells.

My battery sled/tips page has up-to-date information on all types of recorder/preamp batteries.

www.sonicstudios.com/batsys98.htm#tips

[fmaderjr]

The nizn batteries could be great for recorders that are picky about voltage, such as the Tascam dr-2d. If I hadn't just bought 8 eneloops (which are great), I'd give them a try, since they put out 1.6v rather than 1.2 from nimh.

Don't think so. Too Risky. Did you read the thread I provided a link to down to this post?

Update:  Just had a random "replace battery" message, and shutdown in the D50 after recording for 5 minutes.  Fortunately it was just a speaker in a meeting.  The batteries were freshly charged and even showed full before starting, and even when I turned the deck off and back on again.  The 5 minute file was intact, but obviously missed what I was there for.  Not sure I can trust them for a live concert from now on.   Anybody else got these and having any issues?  Gonna test them in my 09HR for awhile and see how that goes.

[hoppedup]

fmaderjr, I'm glad you posted that link. I'm looking for some AA rechargeables and was thinking about the NIZNs. Sounds like it may not play nice with my D50.