Topic: Korg MR2 Some info / noise...

[picnet]

Hi,
    During a recent trip to Japan I brought the Korg MR-2 to replace my MR-1 which really wasn't used much due to poor battery life. Given the "new" MR-2, SD card support and replaceable batteries I thought it would finally be the DSD recorder to own. Except it seems Korgs incremental update cycle negated to improve the preamps or converter stage. In general the MR2 sounds very good, while this term is subjective I liked the analog limiter the most. The menu system is a little improved since the MR1, with a few quirks such as value selection going past the highest value and rolling around to the lowest, e.g selecting the mic sense value, its possible to use low, mid, high. at high you'd expect it to stop, but it wraps around to low then stops odd.

The mic input impedance is different on both recorders, MR2 is 10K vs the Sony D50's 22K - when rolling dynamic mics this results in more noise due to the impedance miss-match (followed by high gain).

When using dynamics of 280 Ohm impedance (TGX80s) theres a loss of 20 log ( 22000/280+22000) = -0.109dB for the D50 vs 20 log ( 10000/280+10000) = -0.239 dB. for the MR2. factor in 30+dB of gain and theres around 3.27 dB loss for the Sony D50 vs 7.17 dB for
the Korg MR2 simply due to the different input impedance of the mic pre's which seems to tally with what Ive observed eyeballing the noise floor. 

Using an electret mic and plug in power with both referenced to 94 dB SPL via a calibrator and gain on both recorders set to peak around -10dB FS.
The MR2's noise floor is 7 dB above the Sony D50's (eyeballing the noise floor at 5.5Khz) 

Low/Mid/High don't seem to make much difference in terms of noise.


-M

[sunjan]

Welcome to TS!
I haven't seen many posts on MR2 yet, you might be the first one here owning one.
Interesting read. So you're saying that MR2 is ~7dB noisier than the D50 - this is measured on mic-in, not line-in IIUC?

[picnet]

Hi
    Its noisier than the D50 when using the mic input. The linein is excellent definately makes more sense to use an external pre and linein with the MR2.

Begs the question why didnt Korg improve the mic pre, sounds as bad as the MR1's.

-Mike

[picnet]

Heres a blog entry I made covering the MR1, MR2 and Sony D50 recording the same electret capsule referenced to the same level and silence in a DIY anechoic chamber.

http://www.urlme.net/blog/?p=1776

-Mike.

[jb63]

MR2 internal mikes in action:

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=377523

This post and the show captured above are pretty much all I've seen about the MR2.
And that thing is more than a year or so old!

I enjoyed the blog post immensely. I would still have to actually play with one to se see if it was a good "fit" so-to-speak.
Still, I can't believe that Korg is not working on an MR3 that we won't know anything about for 2 years after its release.

Thanks!

[picnet]

Hi,
    Heres the MR2 using Dynamic mics running into the RME QuadMic at max gain.

Rain / Outdoor noise.

http://soundcloud.com/urlme/korgmr2-dynamic-mics-line-in

Different content but the flac @ 96/16 bit can be downloaded for evaluation.

Doesnt really bring much to the table, most recorders are fine at line levels,
the MR2 using the same mic's direct into its mic input is pathetic compared to the Sony D50.

-Mike.

[Downrange]

 Now that the price has dropped, I picked one of these up.  Initial impressions:  pretty darned good.  I'm looking forward to performing some more extensive testing.  I think the big advantage is this is real DSD recording ability at the 500 buck mark.  Obviously, will need a decent input setup to bypass the limited built-in stuff, but, hey, that's the price of admission to DSD, right?
Will post more as I play.

[jb63]

What has the price dropped to?

[H₂O]

I have seen it for less than $500 new -> $300-400 used

Still a bit expensive IMO for what it is - $350 would move alot more of these.