Topic: M-Audio MicroTracker details **PART II**

[Simp-Dawg]

being that this things sole purpose in existence is recording 24/96 digitally (with not much emphasis on the pre/ad section),

Why do you say that is the sole purpose? I want to use it for analog recording too.

well, of course it's not its SOLE purpose, but i see it as being primary...i mean, without high-quality analog gain i don't see it as being mainly intended for analog recording.  of course it will fit the bill for that, but with the presence of many high quality analog pre's and a/d's out there, the inclusion of s/pdif says to me that they want this thing to be an easy, portable, reliable storage medium for that digital data.

the opinions above may not reflect the views of ts.com, m-audio, or anyone but myself.

[nic]

being that this things sole purpose in existence is recording 24/96 digitally (with not much emphasis on the pre/ad section),

Why do you say that is the sole purpose? I want to use it for analog recording too.

well, of course it's not its SOLE purpose, but i see it as being primary...i mean, without high-quality analog gain i don't see it as being mainly intended for analog recording.  of course it will fit the bill for that, but with the presence of many high quality analog pre's and a/d's out there, the inclusion of s/pdif says to me that they want this thing to be an easy, portable, reliable storage medium for that digital data.

the opinions above may not reflect the views of ts.com, m-audio, or anyone but myself.

it reflects my view

[1st set only]

anyone have an idea what cables or adapters to use with this?

would this be a good one for making your own?

that cable would work for line-in, but its not balanced, so you couldnt use that if you want to use the phantom power on the M-Audio

could you point me to one on parts express that would work?

[The Kilted Taper]

or the RA version:

[wboswell]

being that this things sole purpose in existence is recording 24/96 digitally (with not much emphasis on the pre/ad section),

Why do you say that is the sole purpose? I want to use it for analog recording too.

well, of course it's not its SOLE purpose, but i see it as being primary...i mean, without high-quality analog gain i don't see it as being mainly intended for analog recording.  of course it will fit the bill for that, but with the presence of many high quality analog pre's and a/d's out there, the inclusion of s/pdif says to me that they want this thing to be an easy, portable, reliable storage medium for that digital data.

the opinions above may not reflect the views of ts.com, m-audio, or anyone but myself.

You see it as the primary, but the designers see way more use than just digital in.  promise.  Our niche is exactly that, a niche.  We are a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of other uses this thing is intended for.

[Simp-Dawg]

being that this things sole purpose in existence is recording 24/96 digitally (with not much emphasis on the pre/ad section),

Why do you say that is the sole purpose? I want to use it for analog recording too.

well, of course it's not its SOLE purpose, but i see it as being primary...i mean, without high-quality analog gain i don't see it as being mainly intended for analog recording. of course it will fit the bill for that, but with the presence of many high quality analog pre's and a/d's out there, the inclusion of s/pdif says to me that they want this thing to be an easy, portable, reliable storage medium for that digital data.

the opinions above may not reflect the views of ts.com, m-audio, or anyone but myself.

You see it as the primary, but the designers see way more use than just digital in. promise. Our niche is exactly that, a niche. We are a drop in the bucket when compared to the number of other uses this thing is intended for.

ahem...

the opinions above may not reflect the views of ts.com, m-audio, or anyone but myself.

i see your point and agree with you, however any way you slice it the thing is a storage device for digital audio...whether it comes it via analog or digital, it doesn't matter... it's getting stored digitally, and if they want this thing to be any more than a glorified 24/96 note taker, they'll make sure it can record for extended periods of time without issues.

[Kevin Straker]

seems to me that some of those folks on the oade board just don't like the m-audio for some reason.  maybe they won't sell it, i don't know.  but they keep fluffing the marantz products over there too, and those just don't look appealing at all to me(especially the cdr box they are now fluffing).  of course i do hope oade sells these, that makes the chances of any doug mods that much better.  to me, this m-audio still looks like it can be the best of the entire bunch, and thank the good lord i have no interest whatsoever in taping festivals

Nope, doug has a list just like every other dealer does.

[hzgone]

This looks pretty promising for 5 bills.

[Kindguy]

I'm buying one. Maybe this will kick me into the 24b realm. I've yet to hear a show @ 24/96

[ghellquist]

Wondering...

Are there any figures on the Signal / Noise ratio on the mic inputs (or for that matter the analog inputs)? Is it really going to be 24 bits?

I have tried the Edirol R-1 and the signal / noise ratio of that box is terrible. To me there is absolutely no idea to record at 24 bits, as the noise level hints at around 14 to 15 bits before the noise floor. (The R-4 though is pretty decent, there 24 bit is actually useful). For most uses I would say 16 bits is quite Ok, especially for a rock or pop concert as the ambient noise level is so high anyway. I however record mostly classical music, and for that something like 18 to 20 bits really come useful to captur the music between clipping and noise floor of the equipment.

So is this box going to be good in that respect?

Gunnar

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

being that this things sole purpose in existence is recording 24/96 digitally (with not much emphasis on the pre/ad section),

Why do you say that is the sole purpose? I want to use it for analog recording too.

I think you may be confused, sure the device has digital and analog inputs, but any and all recording will be digital - it is a digital device.   I suppose you could use it as a preamp, and output the analog out, but then you would still need another ananlog recorder.  If you want to record onto analog, buy a cassette deck.

And yeah, while it can do other things, I don't see why you wouldn't use this to fullest potential and go 24/96.  Dither later for whatever, but you have to power, use it...  So, while I'm not sure I'd say "sole purpose", I'd defintely say, "might as well be"...

Terry

[Tenn Man]

Not confused. What i meant was recording from an analog source.

[macdaddy]

Wondering...

Are there any figures on the Signal / Noise ratio on the mic inputs (or for that matter the analog inputs)? Is it really going to be 24 bits?

I have tried the Edirol R-1 and the signal / noise ratio of that box is terrible. To me there is absolutely no idea to record at 24 bits, as the noise level hints at around 14 to 15 bits before the noise floor. (The R-4 though is pretty decent, there 24 bit is actually useful). For most uses I would say 16 bits is quite Ok, especially for a rock or pop concert as the ambient noise level is so high anyway. I however record mostly classical music, and for that something like 18 to 20 bits really come useful to captur the music between clipping and noise floor of the equipment.

So is this box going to be good in that respect?

Gunnar

saw this comment just now (on the pen-recording list). some serious food for thought...

in response to this question:

"> I responded, but don't believe I've seen Len's response to a point he
> made-possibly Len or anyone else would be able to shed some light on hi
> s point- namely that the onboard electronics build into the microtrack
> would be inferior to the one build into the MIC 2496."

len wrote:

"We can't know for sure at this point, but our experience points to this:

First, based on the MicroTrack 24/96's retail and wholesale price point and
our estimate of the profit margin that M-Audio must receive from each sale,
we can determine the cost of manufacturing the device and how much of that
is allocated to the mic pre/A-to-D and phantom supply.

Based on its pricing, we expect that its mic pre-amp and A-to-D converters
will cost M-Audio roughly the same as the corresponding components in a a
mass market MD recorder or perhaps, if they took some care with the design,
a recent Sony DAT recorder.  Its performance will likley be comparable too.

Since they included a true 48 Volt phanotm supply (how many milliamps per
channel it will be able to supply is still an unknown) , that costs money
too and eats into the bottom line of how much the entire device can cost.
Cost drives performance.

Second, this is new territory for M-Audio.  They have never built a
portable, low voltage,  battery-powered mic pre or mic pre/A-to-D, much less
a complete recorder.  Their only mic pre/A-to-D products were the
Duo/Quattro and Mobile Pre USB.  Only the Duo was a stand-alone device.

Every one of their mic pres to date has required AC power.  Even the wall
warts had AC outputs.  It's a challenge to design and build a low voltage
DC-powered one that has low noise and sounds good.  For our Mic2496 for
example, we went through roughly six re-designs until we were satisfied.

MicroTrack 24/96 runs on a Li-ion or Li-Polymer battery.  That's a low
voltage supply.  To get that to supply a quiet 48 Volt Phantom Power supply
is not easy.

MicroTrack 24/96 also has a backlit LCD display.  Displays are electrically
very noisy, as are microprocessors, display controllers, programmable gate
arrays, interface controllers and memories.  The ideal solution for
controlling electrical noise is to heavily shield the noisy circuits, to
separate them in space, and  to use more expensive design approaches like
multi-layer printed circuit boards with separate digital/analog/power ground
planes..  The MicroTrack 24/96, by having its mic pre-s and A-to-Ds in very
close proximity to the display and the processor/memory, will have a devil
of a time keeping that noise from getting into the mic pre.  That alone
makes us pretty sure that the noise perrformance will not be up to Mic2496's
specs; it will more likely be closer to the 16-bit range than the 24-bit.

For comparison with recent products from other manufactureres., see the user
reports on the Marantz PMD670 and 671 recorders.  The folks at Marantz are
pros at manufacturing professional portable audio recorders. -- they've been
doing it for years.  Those units are much larger than the MicroTrack 24/96
and they're priced at double its retail (or more); their mic pre/A-to-D
performance are clearly not in the pro audio range.

So it's a pretty safe prediction that MicroTrack 24/96 won't have a pro
quality, low-noise, mic pre/A-to-D.  But it'll likely be good enough for
most users who have also been happy with corresponding functions in their MD
and DAT recorders.

I hope that I'll be wrong and be pleasantly surprised.  If so, that'll raise
the bar for all of the manufacturers and we'll be spurred to build a still
better sounding, smaller and hopefully less costly mic front end.


And then there'll be all the issues associated with the limited feature set
that MicroTrack 24/96 will have.  One of PDAudio's great strengths is that
its feature set has grown and will continue to grow to meet its users'
needs.

Only PDAudio with Live2496 offers hot-swapping of recording media, allowing
essentially unlimited continuous recording time.  Only PDAudio with Live2496
allows for timed recording duration and timed auto-start.  Only PDAudio with
Movie 24/96 or Luci allows for mono recording.  Only PDAudio with Luci
allows detailed audio editing and publishing directly to the Internet.  Only
PDAudio with Luci or Vito Sound Editor allows for WAV file editing on your
PDA.  Only PDAudio with various software applications allows recording to
the widest variety of sound file formats, including WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis,
MP2, and many others.  Only PDAudio with Movie 24/96 or Luci provides time
stamping of cues, cue annotation and cue sheets.

Only PDAudio with Mic2496 allows for recording at 192 KS/s.  Only PDAudio
with Mic2496 allows you to record while passing on a digital signal (optical
or coax) for a daisy chain of other digital tapers.  Only PDAudio with
Mic2496 (with detent option) allows for a calibrated, repeatable gain
setting; necessary for precise acoustics measurements.  Only PDAudio lets
you record directly from a coaxial or an optical digital audio feed provided
by others to your un-augmented PDA -- no mic pre or A-to-D is required.
PDAudio with Live 2496 will soon have record-time FLAC compression to
potentially double your storage space.

Only PDAudio can record digital audio to a PDA (e.g., HP iPAQ 3800-series)
commonly available for less than $100.  PDAudio lets you use the highest
quality outboard mic pre/A-to-D using either coaxial or optical interfaces
so that you'll get the benefit of those 24-bit word widths and high sample
rates.  PDAudio essentially has no limitations as to media size -- when 16
GB SD cards eventually become available, PDAudio will likely be able to use
them immediately.  PDAudio will soon be able to use USB 2.0 hard drives for
24/96 and 24/192 with the new PDAs that provide that function.  PDAudio is
already able to stream audio via Wi-Fi/802.11b directly to a network
drive -- no on-board mass storage is necessary, and when the higher speed
802.11g interfaces are available, PDAudio will likely be able to use them
immediately.

Only PDAudio has a full color display.  Only PDAudio provides all of the
non-recording Pocket PC functions that a Windows Mobile PDA supplies,
including telephone, Video and MP3 player, Internet browsing, local area
network access, games, spreadsheets, word processing, GPS navigation and
many others.  And the drivers for PDAudio are essentially open source (or
otherwise easily available) so that folks who want to write their own
applications and to add functions can.

MicroTrack 24/96 holds great promise for a certain market segment and we
expect to sell a bunch of them.  We also expect that it will not displace
PDAudio and Mic2496."

[John Kelly]

Second, this is new territory for M-Audio.  They have never built a
portable, low voltage,  battery-powered mic pre or mic pre/A-to-D, much less
a complete recorder.  Their only mic pre/A-to-D products were the
Duo/Quattro and Mobile Pre USB.  Only the Duo was a stand-alone device.

Every one of their mic pres to date has required AC power.  Even the wall
warts had AC outputs.  It's a challenge to design and build a low voltage
DC-powered one that has low noise and sounds good.  For our Mic2496 for
example, we went through roughly six re-designs until we were satisfied

I can't even read the rest after that.  If he can't bother to be informed on what he's talking about then why should I trust anything he says?

[Ray76]

Second, this is new territory for M-Audio.  They have never built a
portable, low voltage,  battery-powered mic pre or mic pre/A-to-D, much less
a complete recorder.  Their only mic pre/A-to-D products were the
Duo/Quattro and Mobile Pre USB.  Only the Duo was a stand-alone device.

Every one of their mic pres to date has required AC power.  Even the wall
warts had AC outputs.  It's a challenge to design and build a low voltage
DC-powered one that has low noise and sounds good.  For our Mic2496 for
example, we went through roughly six re-designs until we were satisfied

I can't even read the rest after that.  If he can't bother to be informed on what he's talking about then why should I trust anything he says?

I dont care for len personally but he makes some logical points. cost does drive performance for sure, in most cases. the thing about it filling a niche for MDers seems logical too. I hope it is outstanding, but I gotta wonder where they cut corners. technology is costly/ though if it performs on the level of the JB3 better, thats outstanding.