Topic: anyone use a Tascam DR08-or have any stealth unit recomendations?

[kylieshotpants]

Hi

I'm thinking of buying one of these, I live in the uk and need a stealth unit and this seems one of the smallest, one thing it must do is auto gain for taping comedy shows, with a mic in& line in.

I don't want to spend over £200.00 and have binauarals & battery box as I'm still rocking the mini-discs.

Any tips are welcome

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

I had the DR-07 and traded it for the Sony M10.

The shape of the M10 is just better IMO. It's a little wider, but it's also a lot shorter. Certainly pocket sized. It does have auto levels as well.

The thing I like best about the M10 is it RUNS FOREVER on 2 AA batteries.

The M10 seems to be the most popular small recorder at the moment. It sounds good and like I said runs a long time (I usually change batteries after about 15 hours of recording, but I think you could get longer if you wanted to).

[faninor]

I use a DR-07 and am totally happy with it. It's not built like a rock, but the price is so low that if it ever gets damaged I will have gotten my moneys worth by then. I probably will soon be selling my old/backup recorders (M-Audio Microtrack and Sony MZ-M200 Hi-MD that has only been used to transfer old MD masters) and replacing them with one or two Tascam PR-10s.

Haven't tried the M10 myself. I think they both have all the features you want, and both have similar warranties. I'm sure you'd be happy with either recorder to replace your minidisc, but one of them costs half as much as the other.

[aaronji]

Haven't tried the M10 myself. I think they both have all the features you want, and both have similar warranties. I'm sure you'd be happy with either recorder to replace your minidisc, but one of them costs half as much as the other.

And one of them has a noise floor half as much as the other...Not to mention great battery life (which I have read is a weak point of the DR08) and internal memory.  I am sure the DR08 has advantages other than cost too (such as internal cardioids and, presumably, a clock that stays set!).  The long and short of it being that they do have different features and it's not just a matter of cost...

[faninor]

I'm trying to give a recommendation based on the features that kylieshotpants specified. Noise floor and battery life wasn't mentioned. I wasn't implying that they're identical in their quality or specifications, just that they both seem to meet the requirements.

The one thing I haven't looked into is how long does the DR-08 last on batteries? If it isn't enough then I'd recommend the DR-07 as an inexpensive option. The recordings I've made with mine sound incredible for a device that cost about $120 US, it lasts 3 or 4 hours on rechargeable batteries and has the same published s/n ratio as the M10, but is a bit larger.

[sunjan]

The M10 is great value, but since the OP lives in EU, it would break his budget.
Street price for M10 starts from 289 EUR:
http://geizhals.at/eu/a479762.html

Sub-200 GBP, the best value in EU would probably be the R-05 (EUR 189):
http://geizhals.at/eu/a538356.html

Of course, DR-07 and DR-08 are cheaper, but gain is probably a bit noisier.
AGC handling is also an unknown factor, since us music tapers mostly avoid it.

For rock bottom budget, there is also the new Zoom H1 (98 EUR), which received surprisingly good reviews, taking the price into account:
http://geizhals.at/eu/a553856.html