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

[unidentified]

Totally agree with Voltranic. Me personally, I would prefer transparency.  Of course, YMMV. To each his or her own.

[Ozpeter]

It seems to me that in recent years, the chances of just about any listener being able to spot differences in noise or frequency response between recent recorders of good repute, and external preamps, are very low.  In the context of recording live shows from audience positions, very very low.  The mics used, and their placement, will be a hundred times more noticeable.

It seems to me... but maybe it does not seem to anyone else!

[JiB97]

are the preamps in the FR-AV2 the same as the Tascam DR-70D?

They both have what they refer to as their" HDDA preamp", but on the Tascam website, they refer to the preamps in the FR-AV2 as "Ultra HDDA" instead of just HDDA, like what is listed for the DR-70D.

There is a picture of the chip with the DR-70D board on the Tascam website: https://tascam.com/us/product/dr-70d

But I wasn't able to find the picture listed for the FR-AV2 : https://tascam.com/us/product/fr-av2

any thoughts on this?

[goodcooker]

are the preamps in the FR-AV2 the same as the Tascam DR-70D?
They both have what they refer to as their" HDDA preamp", but on the Tascam website, they refer to the preamps in the FR-AV2 as "Ultra HDDA" instead of just HDDA, like what is listed for the DR-70D.
There is a picture of the chip with the DR-70D board on the Tascam website: https://tascam.com/us/product/dr-70d
But I wasn't able to find the picture listed for the FR-AV2 : https://tascam.com/us/product/fr-av2
any thoughts on this?

The HDDA preamp was used in the DR701d but I thought was an upgrade from the 70d. I could be, and likely am, wrong about the 70d. I had a 701 but not a 70.

EDIT- I followed the links and it looks like they upgraded the 70 with the mkii version (red handles) and included the HDDA preamp circuit.

[Ronmac]

are the preamps in the FR-AV2 the same as the Tascam DR-70D?
They both have what they refer to as their" HDDA preamp", but on the Tascam website, they refer to the preamps in the FR-AV2 as "Ultra HDDA" instead of just HDDA, like what is listed for the DR-70D.
There is a picture of the chip with the DR-70D board on the Tascam website: https://tascam.com/us/product/dr-70d
But I wasn't able to find the picture listed for the FR-AV2 : https://tascam.com/us/product/fr-av2
any thoughts on this?

The HDDA preamp was used in the DR701d but I thought was an upgrade from the 70d. I could be, and likely am, wrong about the 70d. I had a 701 but not a 70.

EDIT- I followed the links and it looks like they upgraded the 70 with the mkii version (red handles) and included the HDDA preamp circuit.

Tascam products page identifying preamp type by product can be found here: https://tascam.com/us/contents/mic_preamp

[dogmusic]

Tascam products page identifying preamp type by product can be found here: https://tascam.com/us/contents/mic_preamp

So the FR-AV2 has the same ULTRA HDDA preamps as the highly regarded TASCAM HS-P82 field recorder.

[unclehoolio]

You cannot change the analog input gain on this Tascam! It is fixed!
The ‘record level’ you can set works post ADC. This means it doesn’t really matter what you set it to, you can always normalize it afterwards without any quality impact. (Only if you want to play the recording on the tascam itself, it would be nice to have decent levels which won’t clip during playback.)
Personally I wouldn’t worry at all about the record level and certainly not change it during recording! It won’t bring any benefit recording-quality-wise, and would only complicate things during post processing.

Don't want to make a war out of it, but please read page 10 or 30 in the manual, mind that the Tascam also can record with 24-bit and you need in that case to controle record level BEFORE it hits the ADC. Next, it make no sense in record level behind the ADC, in case of very soft sounds just above the noise floor you never get the bottom out of the first stage bucket when it comes to noise. Due to the nature of maximum levels the preamp is fixed as you suggest.

It’s good to have discussion, and I must admit I assumed recording at 32-bit floating point. However, even when recording at 24 bits it doesn’t necessarily mean there must be analog gain control. The device can operate completely identical regardless recording to 24 bit fixed point or 32 bit floating point storage, apart from that in 24-bit the samples for the output file are converted from the internally used 32bfp to 24bit before storing. And in that case, it would be wise to make sure (by setting the fully digital ‘record level’) that the samples are not too quiet and won’t go over 0dbFS.
It seems Tascam has confirmed there is no analog gain control whatsoever on this device, regardless of the used storage format. See https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=205834.msg2420100#msg2420100.
Of course the dual-ADC setup helps to properly deal with both quiet and loud signals.

A portion from the manual is attached here that kind of confirms too that there is no analog gain control. If there is analog overload, they advice to lower the volume of the source or to move the mics away from the source. They do not tell you to lower the 'record level', as that won't help to relieve the analog part.

Indeed, it was these proposed solutions from this page in the manual that led me to seek clarification from Tascam on whether there was, or was not, gain control in the analog realm.  I suppose there is a 3rd option available for those whose mics (like my c480b's) have output pads:  enable the pads.

Wouldn't switching to 'line input' practically do the same thing? Of course that would only work for the TRS or XLR inputs, not for the 3.5mm EXT input.

Unless I am not recalling it correctly:  unlike the F3, +48v power is not available for 'Line In' mode on the AV2.  This difference is where the F3 has an advantage over the Tascam unit, when it comes to using mics that require phantom power.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but the Zoom F3 doesn't even have a 'Line In' mode as such, which would skip the preamp. It's essentially the same analogue path but with a -20 dB pad in front of it. It serves the same purpose when managing levels (i.e. the use case we are discussing here), but the device is not really made for people who for example want to use an external preamp for colouration or less noise.

But then again, I'd think the AV2 would be the same? Line in mode should just be a pad too? Which makes the absence of phantom power a little baffling.

So this is a project or compilation that I'd love to... find, or have someone else do:  accurately map or describe the mic in vs line in signal path for a core set of recorders that we use (e.g. SD MixPre# and #ii series, Zoom F-series, FR-AV2, etc...), specifically calling out those that have a separate signal path for line in vs mic in, and those that simply use a pad.  I have neither the time nor the technical chops to make meaningful progress on such an initiative.

[dogmusic]

I’m fairly sure that the Tascam DR-680 MkI & MkII have separate signal paths for mic & line.

[Kyle K]

Recorded another six sets over the last week, SBD / AUD with 2 FR-AV2s. Bluetooth continues to be inexcusably bad (PCM A10 chaining is a must) & I did get another instance of the unclean file splits issue. So it's sporadic. I pressed REC on both devices at the same time, let them hang from there on out, the settings are all the same except for one recording w/ MICs and the other recording LINE IN, and only one of them has the unclean distorted file split so far. About to dig into the other sets soon. Really frustrating, especially given that it isn't consistently reproducible at home. No idea what is possibly causing it, or if it's just total random chance.

(issue being occasionally getting the the tiniest smidgeon of ultra-high-DB-distortion, <.001s, at the end of the 3 hour file, that I am able to manually cut out of my matrixes during the mixdown, but still just extremely annoying)

[TheJez]

I did get another instance of the unclean file splits issue. So it's sporadic.
(issue being occasionally getting the the tiniest smidgeon of ultra-high-DB-distortion, <.001s)

I'm really sorry to hear about your issues. I haven't used my FR-AV2 that much and never experienced the same issues as you. This really sounds like a couple of bytes of non-audio data being interpreted as floating point audio data, resulting in 'random sample values'.
I think I asked before, but I'm not sure about the answer, so I just ask again: What editor (and what version) are you using, and did you already try to open the same original (as in unmodified) file with another editor? Would you be willing and able to share such a faulty file so others can have a look at it? (I'd be happy to give it a try)
It seems that FR-AV2 creates a load of markers at 00:00:00.000 in each file, and maybe some editors won't deal with that properly under certain conditions. (Just speculating... I've seen audio processing software specifically stating they can't handle wav files with more than 'x' markers in it...)

[Kyle K]

I did get another instance of the unclean file splits issue. So it's sporadic.
(issue being occasionally getting the the tiniest smidgeon of ultra-high-DB-distortion, <.001s)

I'm really sorry to hear about your issues. I haven't used my FR-AV2 that much and never experienced the same issues as you. This really sounds like a couple of bytes of non-audio data being interpreted as floating point audio data, resulting in 'random sample values'.
I think I asked before, but I'm not sure about the answer, so I just ask again: What editor (and what version) are you using, and did you already try to open the same original (as in unmodified) file with another editor? Would you be willing and able to share such a faulty file so others can have a look at it? (I'd be happy to give it a try)
It seems that FR-AV2 creates a load of markers at 00:00:00.000 in each file, and maybe some editors won't deal with that properly under certain conditions. (Just speculating... I've seen audio processing software specifically stating they can't handle wav files with more than 'x' markers in it...)

It's definitely an issue with the AV2 and I'm pretty (but not 100%) sure there is a tiny bit of actual audio loss along with it. The issue is visible in both Reaper and Audacity, and if it had anything to do with the DAW I'd almost certainly see it across all my split files, not just some of them, as with this run. I'll DM you the raw file.

Since this is a hobby it's like, annoying, but man, if this occurred with a professional shoot, I'd be livid.

[goodcooker]

Am I reading that timeline correctly and this is a few 1/1000s of a second?

[Kyle K]

Correct

[commongrounder]

Interesting. The glitch is exactly 3ms long and positive going. Have you examined any other splits with a glitch, and if so, are they identical to this one? It would be a strong indication of a firmware issue if more users reported this problem. If it’s just your one unit, it could be an individual hardware failure.
This is reminiscent of a problem Sound Devices had with a firmware version for their Mixpre recorders where there was an occasional one sample random (32-bit float) value at the beginning of a file. SD was able to fix the problem with the next update.

[Kyle K]

Interesting. The glitch is exactly 3ms long and positive going. Have you examined any other splits with a glitch, and if so, are they identical to this one? It would be a strong indication of a firmware issue if more users reported this problem. If it’s just your one unit, it could be an individual hardware failure.
This is reminiscent of a problem Sound Devices had with a firmware version for their Mixpre recorders where there was an occasional one sample random (32-bit float) value at the beginning of a file. SD was able to fix the problem with the next update.

Good point -- looking back at my original screencap here, it's almost certainly identical, yes. I'll try to be sure to follow through on actually opening a ticket this time.

hm, looks like I'll have another ticket for TASCAM.

What's odd is I didn't notice this in my initial battery tests, I could've sworn I normalized the split tracks during that process but maybe not.

What's attached here is zoomed in waveform at the end of the automatic file split. This is present in both devices I was using. Audible as a tiny "pop" of distortion, normalizes to -INF. When it's simply cut out it is barely noticeable in the recording, but still, should not be occurring.