Topic: Zoom H2essential. It seems to be a 6 channel device!

[Ozpeter]

By the way, the basic frame of the H2e which runs up the side, across the top where the record and other buttons are, and down the other side, appears to be metal rather than plastic.  And that frames the metal grille that occupies the top half housing the mics.  The lower half panels and battery cover are plastic.  The overall feel is about as robust as you would reasonably expect.  It doesn't come across as plasticy.

[Dan33185]

By the way, the basic frame of the H2e which runs up the side, across the top where the record and other buttons are, and down the other side, appears to be metal rather than plastic.  And that frames the metal grille that occupies the top half housing the mics.  The lower half panels and battery cover are plastic.  The overall feel is about as robust as you would reasonably expect.  It doesn't come across as plasticy.

So probably more difficult to sneak in than the H1E I would suspect. I'm thinking I will probably go with the H1E and test it at a show beforehand to make sure there aren't any major flaws I can't live with.

[grawk]

If you can sneak one of them in you can sneak the other in. It’s not that tricky. Neither is undetectable so you need to be creative.

[Ozpeter]

If you can sneak one of them in you can sneak the other in. It’s not that tricky. Neither is undetectable so you need to be creative.

I have zero knowledge in this area but I suspect the H2e is more metallic and, perhaps, more detectable?  But if both are detectable, well, you could say the H2e is your shaver...

[Ozpeter]

https://youtu.be/E-t9im-oUDU?si=YKtDWhFFnbIlyj4Z

I ended up making a Zoom H2e test with eight different audio recorders which somehow came to hand.  As it involves so many I have also made a separate thread out of it.

[meltycrayon]

If you can sneak one of them in you can sneak the other in. It’s not that tricky. Neither is undetectable so you need to be creative.

I have zero knowledge in this area but I suspect the H2e is more metallic and, perhaps, more detectable?  But if both are detectable, well, you could say the H2e is your shaver...

I've said my H4e is an assistive listening device, and an emergency response radio.

[grawk]

Even the pr2 can be detected if they crank up the sensitivity. Think like a magician. Distract, confuse, give them something else to find. Lots of strategies work.

[rastasean]

Even the pr2 can be detected if they crank up the sensitivity. Think like a magician. Distract, confuse, give them something else to find. Lots of strategies work.

That's right...just take it out with your keys/wallet/phone before you go through the detector. Clearly it's not a weapon...

[Ozpeter]

Something that has just been drawn to my attention is that the Zoom H2essential does not have dual a/d converters.  This, I imagine, would limit its overall dynamic range.  I have to say I have not yet encountered any problem in that area but my tests have not focussed on very loud sounds.  Yet.

[Ozpeter]

I have just uploaded two more tests of the Zoom H2essential.

The first only lasts a minute and attempts to identify why the sound from this recorder can sound a bit thin if not fixed during editing.  I recorded a short bit of speech just using the centre hypercardioid mic.  Then I recorded speech delivered by addressing only the left side of the device (which looks like an odd way of doing things).  I then processed this stereo recording so that the output only comes from the left hand recorded channel, brought to the centre.

The difference in frequency response of the two samples is significant.

Actually I could have improved the focus on the left side channel by setting the device to record in MS, then discarding the mid component, and then bringing the left channel to the centre.  The way that I did this test will actually include some spillage from the centre mic, I suspect.  But it wouldn't be much due to it being a hypercardioid capsule.

https://youtu.be/dk_2qWVz7xo

The second test is a relatively crude walkabout with video, past a fountain on an industrial estate and then towards the adjacent noisy highway.  Finally I walked back to the fountain through some trees beneath which were some crunchy leaves.  It shows the H2e in use for ambience capture. Despite the question mark over how its 32 bit float files are created (not from dual converters it seems), the recording seems very detailed to me, with system noise not being evident (to my old ears).  A considerable amount of normalisation was required - the natural level in the files is quite low, and the way the system is configured it clearly anticipates much higher levels than I encountered in this recording.

https://youtu.be/R2WogNTzB7Y

[Ozpeter]

I couldn't resist doing the job properly - although it took me ages to work out which VST plugins to use in Reaper to do the job. 

In this short test, I recorded myself with the H2e set to MS mode.  Then I decoded the MS to LR in Reaper.  I spoke first into the rear centre of the H2e, which was set to 120 rear only.  Then I turned it through 90 degrees and spoke into the left side of it.

In the upload, what you hear first is the original recording, decoded from MS to LR in Reaper.

Then you hear it again, but when I was speaking into the centre, I muted the side mics in the MS decoder, leaving only the center mic audible, in mono.

Finally, for the part where I spoke into the left side of the H2e, I muted the centre channel in the decoder, leaving only the side mics audible.  But that leaves you listening to the fig of 8 capsule only, in stereo, with the left channel out of phase with the right channel.  So I muted the right channel and centred the left channel, and that leaves you listening to just the left side of the fig of 8 capsule, in mono.

https://youtu.be/S8N1OiHQsOA

Once again this test reveals a significant difference in the audio quality between the centre mic(s) and the fig of 8 side mic.  Ideally this recorder should always be used in MS which should enable different EQ to be applied to the capsules later, for instance, bass lift for the centre capsule only.  It's a pity that Zoom didn't build something like that into the preamp at the outset.

[Ozpeter]

Another test.  This time you hear the noise of an Australian possum outside the window at 4am.  At least the H2e is very quick to set up and record when one has been woken up by the little monster.  Also there are some thunderstorm recordings.

Using this test you may be able to judge how significant system noise is.  The environmental sounds are quite significant - cooling system running in the background, suburban background rumble, and so on - but those environmental sounds change a bit in the first three clips, but I was careful to up the gain of them by the same amount, 30dB, so if you can hear system noise it should sound the same on all three clips even though the environmental noise changes.  Personally, I can't hear it.  But I'm old.  However I can hear the subtle sound of my breathing in the first clip, about two feet from the recorder a bit to the right hand side, and I was lying on a sofa, so not breathing heavily.  It's not covered by any system noise, and it would have been extremely low level.  In the spectral display in Audition I can just see the regular bands of the breathing.

One of the thunder recordings was actually reduced in level by normalising, in other words, it was into the red straight from the 32 bit float file.  But when normalised there was no clipping visible on the loudest clip when I zoomed right into the waveform.  Even if it's only a single a/d converter design, it seems to work fine for this kind of use.

https://youtu.be/b_br3qyCEFU

[Ozpeter]

For info - Zoom have confirmed that this device does NOT use dual ADCs so the 24 bit converter is simply writing its 24 bits of data to a 32 bit float file.

[Ozpeter]

I just did a bit of testing of the H2e vs the H2N to see how well the H2e with its kind-of 32 bit float functionality compares with the H2n.  I recorded a short passage of rock music into the H2N line input, with the output from the amp adjusted so that the level on the H2N meters was not quite over the top.  The H2N input level was set to zero (which does still allow a tiny bit of sound through).  Then I did the same with the H2e, being careful to input the same level from the amp (simple enough, I just made sure the volume knob wasn't moved).  The H2e has no gain adjustment.

The H2N replay and waveform display was fine.  The piece of music has one quite distinct maximum peak and the waveform at that point was rounded not flat.

The H2e replay sounded dire at first and the displayed waveform was just a solid lump!  However, normalising it brought it back to a recognisable waveform display, but - it was still flattened along the top, and the peaks were flat not rounded.

The moral of that is that if you want to record from an amp under circumstances where it could be really loud, the H2N seems to be the better option to avoid clipping, if you set its gain to zero.  The signal that the H2N coped with caused the H2e clipping light to flash all the time, showing the input was saturated even before it got to the single AD converter.

I then tried recording a test tone into the mics of each device, using the H2N first, and adjusting the level of the tone so that the H2N clip light did not quite come on.  This time the result was better insofar as the H2e recording, though initially being about 17dB over the top in the editor, was fine when normalised, with rounded peaks.  The test was slightly crude but it gave me reasonable confidence that mic recordings with the H2e would not be clipped before the H2N clipped.

Note that the mic configuration of the two devices is somewhat different but I'm quite confident that the test was valid.

[Edited to add that I tried the tone test into the mics of the M2 device at an even higher level - sorry neighbours - and that was fine, but it is rated as capable of handling 135dB at the mic.  I then cranked it to stupid level which did lead to a slightly mis-shaped waveform (but not clipped) but frankly that could have been the speaker not coping, as I saw it kind of jump when I started playback.  Same as the lady across the road jumped too...]

[Ozpeter]

I just came across a recording of an orchestra made with the Zoom H2essential - it is so unusual (imho) to find acoustic large ensemble recordings using any portable recorder.  Personally I would rate the sound in this recording to be, well, no disaster - perhaps a bit bright but that's a characteristic of this recorder.  I think I would have boosted the bottom end a bit, but the sound doesn't seem to have any unpleasant peaks and suchlike.  Very wide stereo image. Worth skipping through by anyone interested.

https://youtu.be/JcEgTGeMJKE?si=9tpMNoo690G6mhXJ

The second half features a brass band, which is kind of peaky kind of thing to tackle - just being able to plonk a tiny recorder in front of it and have no concerns over level is worth the modest price of the device.  (Sure, the analog end could get saturated but I don't hear any problem in the bits I have played).  And self noise isn't obvious to me, although I admit that my elderly ears may not be the best tool for judging that...

[Further investigation of the channel shows there are a number of recent concerts where the H2essential is listed as the audio source.  While I can see some mics at the back of the stage, more clearly evident in the choral concert, they don't seem to be placed as if intended to record these ensembles.  I have asked in a comment for more details about exactly what was used.  Fascinating.  Well, to me anyway...]