I am looking at building up some equipment to do some location recording, specifically for the purpose of building up a sound effects library (eg typical tasks might involve wandering around a park and finding things that make sounds like breaking a twig etc, or round a factory and recording noises machines make). Typical recordings will be through a mono mic or stereo binaurals so no more than 2 channels is required.
I have done alot of hunting round the web looking for what things to buy, asking questions on various forums but can't seem to work out exactly what I need. I recently found this forum and had a search around - unfortunately it seems to have brought up more questions than answered!
Anyway, the list of equipment I had previously settled up was this:
Sennheiser K6 + ME66 Rifle Mic
Core Sound Binaural Mic set
Deneke AD20 preamp & a/d converter
iRiver IHP-120 20gb
I'm quite happy with the choice of mics, although if I were richer i'd go for the higher range binaurals Core Sound do.
The Deneke AD20 is a compact, belt clip-able stereo preamp with 20-bit A/D - Sounds perfect for the task but I can't find any reviews or opinions anywhere other than on Core Sound's website. Also, I would kind of prefer to find somewhere other than Core Sound to buy this stuff, as I am based in the UK and Core Sound is in the US, and it seems the only methods of paying Core Sound are via Paypal (which I can't use presently) or by sending the money by post, which will take ages and is very risky.
I was all set on the iRiver IHP-120 (or 140 as its not much more expensive) but have read some dodgy things about them on this forum. The 700-odd MB single file limit is not a problem as I probably wont record more than 10 mins in a take, but I also have been reading that they have regular drop-outs in the recording process, which would be unacceptable. Can anyone confirm/deny this? Is anyone recording with the iRiver without drop-outs?
So from what I read here I then considered the Creative Nomad Jukebox 3, however these are getting on a bit now and I would have thought something better would have come along by now. I can't find the 40gb version in the UK anywhere either. Are there any other (preferably compact) HD-recorders that can record uncompressed WAV through a digital in? I believe Philips do one, and what about the newer Creative Zen recorders?
All this gear has come to a price of about £1000 (about $1800) which is acceptable. However, if there is so much hassle with the HD recorders, should I maybe just bit the bullet and get something real pro like the Fostex FR-2 and bring my budget up to £1600 or so?