Topic: Tascam FR-AV2 new compact 32bit float recorder.

[Kyle K]

Well damn, good news this time.

Gear:
Neumann KM184 (2x) > FR-AV2
Eneloop Pro (3x)

Settings:
MIC (Inputs 1 + 2)
48v
+0 DB
Backlight 5 Seconds
Backlight LOW brightness
CONTRAST set to minimum
Ni-MH under 'Battery'
(Everything else default)

Conditions:
Batteries sitting in recording deck for last 3 days after a full charge
~78 degree room
Turned on some tunes and placed the mics up against some headphones @ 50 mins to simulate recording conditions to a greater degree
(inconsistencies in waveform levels can be ignored, that's all me. everything sounds good.)

6 hours 15 minutes!


Very interesting / pleasantly surprising result.

Attached some pictures of the app throughout the process. When I saw the battery meter @ 3 hours I was thinking that the depletion rate would begin to accelerate rapidly, but it was relatively constant. Not perfectly accurate of course, didn't show half until about 3h45m (thought I took a screenshot @ half meter but I guess not) but accurate enough. Last screenshot is a warning it displays. Keeps the unit on with the last little bit of juice but automatically stops recording, and doesn't let you start it back up.



Re: TheJez, I was not using POWER SAVE when I did the EXT INPUT stereo (no PIP) battery test. I really should've. For that test, unless I experienced some sort of settings reversion glitch (checked after the fact), BACKLIGHT was set to ALWAYS @ MEDIUM brightness. Which is little odd because I don't remember setting that... must not have set it properly after my factory resets a few nights ago. I double checked 48v test settings prior to recording though, those are accurate.

Wouldn't have expected to get so much time given the ~8hrs with no phantom/PIP. Wonder how much juice was just the backlight setting vs the unit being surprisingly comparable between phantom & no phantom conditions.

[adrianb]

Thanks for that. This is very reassuring indeed, and puts the unit on my must buy list. Just wondering if I will own this instead of, or as well as, my MixPre-3 II since I only need two channels.

[mnm207]

Thanks for that. This is very reassuring indeed, and puts the unit on my must buy list. Just wondering if I will own this instead of, or as well as, my MixPre-3 II since I only need two channels.

My thought, too. I have a MixPre3 (not the ii) and feel like the FR-AV2 will be a better fit for what and how I record... Don't need both. Will purchase the Tascam and do a comparison with my mics, though, before letting go of the Sound Devices.

[vwmule]

I ran the deck last night for a show with DPA 4023. Used a 6,000 mah external battery and while the performance was just under an hour and a half, all four lights on the battery remained. So guessing very good run times with external battery.

[TheJez]

Re: TheJez, I was not using POWER SAVE when I did the EXT INPUT stereo (no PIP) battery test. I really should've.

Thanks! It's ok, it means we'll get even more runtime when POWER SAVE is enabled!

[datbrad]

Reading the manual I was very pleased to find there is a record hold function to prevent accidentally stopping a recording. Not a full key hold, but better than no hold at all.   

[TheJez]

I ran the deck last night for a show with DPA 4023. Used a 6,000 mah external battery and while the performance was just under an hour and a half, all four lights on the battery remained. So guessing very good run times with external battery.

I’m absolutely not knowledgeable about batteries, so just out of curiosity I have this question: If you would have used the 2450mAh rechargeable AA batteries, wouldn’t you have had ‘more juice’ than when using this 6000mAh external battery? (As 3x2450=7350mAh) Or isn’t it that simple?

[TheJez]

The reports from Kyle (and other reports and reviews) made me bite the bullet: I went for the FR-AV2 instead of the F3... Should arrive tomorrow . Thank you all for your reports, info and valuable opinions!

[grawk]

I ran the deck last night for a show with DPA 4023. Used a 6,000 mah external battery and while the performance was just under an hour and a half, all four lights on the battery remained. So guessing very good run times with external battery.

I’m absolutely not knowledgeable about batteries, so just out of curiosity I have this question: If you would have used the 2450mAh rechargeable AA batteries, wouldn’t you have had ‘more juice’ than when using this 6000mAh external battery? (As 3x2450=7350mAh) Or isn’t it that simple?

The batteries are likely in series, which increases voltage, rather than parallel which increases capacity.

[adrianb]

Before and after photos.

Modifying my Core-Sound DPA4061 microphones ready for the AV2 with 5v PIP. (With apologies to Len).

Both mics now terminate in a single 3.5mm TRS jack. I have tested with my Sony PCM-D100, which also provides 5v PIP, and it works great.

[Kyle K]

Happy to be of help testing. It's what I do for a living 

On the clock-bleed-in-extreme-edge-cases front, received a response back from TASCAM:

Hello Kyle,
 
We have forwarded the information to our engineering department in Japan.
They were able to duplicate the issue and are working on a firmware update which should be available in the next few weeks.

 
 
 
Thank you for your interest in TASCAM products.

When I reached out to them I acknowledged this could be expected functionality, I just asked them to see if it was reproducible on a test unit & to rule out some sort of manufacturing issue with shielding.

Kinda interesting - I wonder if the fix will be to simply reduce the max gain able to be applied since it's mainly just scary to see on the display. It is difficult to conceive of a valid use case where the clicks would be at all perceptible (outside of perhaps surreptitious eavesdropping, but even then you'd probably be using a higher sensitivity mic where it wouldn't be an issue haha).

Just updating to bookend that whole thing. Er, I guess the true bookend won't come till the firmware update does..

[Ozpeter]

Excellent work, Kyle.  With recording equipment one can take the approach that minor imperfections won't be heard anyway, or that if it can be perfect, it should be perfect, audible in real world or not.  But it's usually the case that what makes the biggest difference is the selection and placement of mics.  I guess before long someone will bring out an AI tool to deal with that...

[Kyle K]

Out in the field for the first time running 2 AV2s. In a medium-small room (Mr Smalls Pittsburgh, about 30-40 ft from SBD AV2) and yeah - PCM A10 does indeed smoke it on the Bluetooth front. Totally stable, while there's no connecting to that AV2. Saving me from feed anxiety (just wrt signal, not levels). Really the only damper for me, otherwise love it.

Edit: note this is Android, tested on my older S10+ as well as my wife's flagship model (S23 ultra or whatever newest is). It is very well possible that iPhone would have a better experience given  what are often dramatically different development processes.

[goodcooker]

I got mine a couple of days ago. Just fooled around with at home since I don't have any shows coming up right away due to lack of free time.

First impressions - very light but it feels solid, I like the display and all the info I could want is there, the control interface is going to take some getting used to (and I would prefer physical dedicated switches for some things that are menu controlled but I get why they did it the way they did to save space that switches require) but any time I get a new recorder there's some learning curve getting accustomed to it, battery life is sufficient using well worn Eneloop AAs to get me through a opener and headliner set on one set of 3 batteries using my MBHO actives.

Looking forward to getting out to some shows with it. Due to opening a new bar and restaurant this week and my hair being basically on fire I may not get a chance to use it until Bob Weir and Wolf Bros with the Louisiana Philharmonic in New Orleans in November.

[TheJez]

Got mine yesterday. Also bought and charged a bunch of Ikea Ladda 2450mAh batteries as these get good reviews. Also got a SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDHC card of 32GB, rated 90MB/s write and 100MB/s read speed.
First findings:
- The USB file transfer speed is rather disappointing (as with most recorders): Just about 5.5MB/s. Getting your recording off the device this way will take forever. When the same microSD card is put in an El Cheapo USB3 hub with card reader, I get 30MB/s.
- The rubber microSD-card 'door' feels rather flimsy. Will probably come off after a couple of years unless you'll never use it.

Did a duration test with freshly charged Ladda batteries, 48kHz 32bit float, +5V PIP for a pair of Clippy microphones through the EXT input, using display setting as low as possible:
- Auto power save: OFF
- Power save mode: OFF
- Backlight: OFF
- Brightness: LOW
- Indicators: ALL OFF
- Contrast: as low as possible
This gave me a rather dark but still readable display, and... A whopping 9:13 of recording time!!
But:... After checking the recorder about 1.5h into the test, I found that the VU meters of both input and output had frozen in time. The recording time was still running, I could still add markers and change the headphone output volume (both confirmed on the display) and after the test I verified that it had been recording the whole time. This partly freezing display (or more likely crashed VU metering software) is not so good...

After putting in new batteries and switching on the device, the VU meters are fine agian. Now repeating the test with display settings as high as possible, just curious what will come out of that and if the VU meters will freeze again...