Topic: microtrack 2496 test results

[flintstone]

Dan Dugan is a long-time audio dealer (Nagra) in SF and supporter of the Nature Sound
Society.  He recently tested the M-Audio Microtrack 2496.  Here is Dan's analysis
of input noise levels.

http://www.dandugan.com/downloads/MicroTrack_Input_Noise.pdf

Flintstone

[Colin Liston]

Interesting.  Guess I'll just use it as a "bit bucket", at least mine gets a digital signal. 

Someone send this to M-Audio...

[BC]

thanks for sharing, nice info to have. +t

To be honest this relatively poor analog performance is not that surprising given the "feel" of this thing, it seems very cheaply constructed. I know that m-audio said it would output 48V phantom, but holding it in my hand and feeling how light it is makes me wonder realistically how the hell anyone could expect this thing to have quality 48V phantom and mic preamps.

But yeah, all I want it for is a "bit bucket" to take digital signals.

[thegreatgumbino]

I think he hits the nail on the head when he says hopefully Oade will come up with some upgrades.  Interesting test.  Thanks for the link +T

[nickgregory]

wonder what the R1s noise floor would look like, as the tapes I have heard, analog in, on those units are fantastic

[rodeen]

I have no expertise at all in the kind of tests Dan ran but do have some questions about what he did.
On the first several tests he performed he ran headphone out of both the MT and the minidisc recorder
to a SD USBPre.  I'm curious if this is a fair test of the MT's preamp?  Wouldn't this be more of a comparison
of headphone amps?  The MT has true line outs on it.  I would use those to get an accurate picture of
how the preamp performs.  Quite honestly if the headphone amp is subpar it wouldn't bother me a whole
lot. 

The last test was to try using the MT as a bit bucket.  This will be how I use mine almost exclusively. 
In my "living room" testing I chained my MT off my PCM-M1 DAT which is known for its low voltage
output on its SP/DIF.  My MT locked without a problem and recorded flawlessly.  Ask a D8 user to do
that  :-) 

Finally, Dan's initial test was to plug a mic in a give it a listen.  He commented that it sounded good
with extended low frequency response and a good signal to noise ratio.  As Doug Oade frequently says,
trust your ears.

My first field test is Wednesday night!  I can't wait to see how it performs.  I'll be bit-bucketing to DAT
and NJB3 as well.

[Rob D]

I'm posting this response for Dan Dugan:

===

Thanks, Rob, please post this for me.

Rodeen: I have no expertise at all in the kind of tests Dan ran but do have some questions about what he did.
...snip...
how the preamp performs.  Quite honestly if the headphone amp is subpar it wouldn't bother me a whole
lot.

Dan: I wouldn't be able to live with a recorder that had a headphone amp that was that noisy, either. Would you want to sit on a cliff in the desert waiting for bats to fly out of a cave listening to -- hiss? The signal-to-noise demands of nature recording are the same as for classical music recording. With the added challenges of doing it with a rig you can hike with, and in weather!

I'm in the habit of doing measurement of consumer recorders from the headphone jack because on many portables the headphone output is a better line amp for driving a string of test instruments. It may have a lower output impedance--a phones amp has to be low-Z, but an RCA line out is often padded for protection. On the Sony WM-D6C, for example, the line output starts rolling off from the capacitance of six feet of cable or more. BTW I checked to be sure the output equalizer in the MicroTrack was set flat.

I know the noise on the analyzer was input noise because it went up and down with the record gain setting. Phones amp noise would be constant.

Rodeen: The last test was to try using the MT as a bit bucket.  This will be how I use mine almost exclusively.
In my "living room" testing I chained my MT off my PCM-M1 DAT which is known for its low voltage
output on its SP/DIF.  My MT locked without a problem and recorded flawlessly.  Ask a D8 user to do
that  :-)

Dan: Happy to hear that. I only tried it with one S/PDIF source.

Rodeen: Finally, Dan's initial test was to plug a mic in a give it a listen.  He commented that it sounded good
with extended low frequency response and a good signal to noise ratio.  As Doug Oade frequently says,
trust your ears.

Dan-- It's even better to know -when- to trust your ears. When the analyzer looked worse than what I heard, I checked the response of the phones, which I got recently and only use for monitoring in the field. I was getting a filtered impression.

Rodeen: My first field test is Wednesday night!  I can't wait to see how it performs.  I'll be bit-bucketing to DAT
and NJB3 as well.
Rod

Dan: If you're recording a loud scene, it will be fine.

-Dan Dugan

[it-goes-to-eleven]

That is interesting, thanks for posting.. But I'm with Rodeen. The method here is flawed.

My list:

This wasn't a recording test, it was a headphone output test. For all we know, the headphone output may be going analog > A/D > D/A > output.

Pre-amp gain levels were not matched. He matched levels using the headphone gain. Who knows whether the MD preamp was at 10dB and the MT amp at 20dB.

What input mode was the MT in?  1/8"  1/4" L, M, H??

I'm guessing that s/pdif probably worked but because the focus was on the headphone, it wouldn't have been obvious.   I recall that there is a headphone monitoring bug with s/pdif.

Unfortunately, I agree with most of Dan's conclusions..  It is unacceptably noisy and would be terrible for quiet recording sources.. But gosh, we already knew that. The MD *does* demonstrate that small/cheap devices can have quiet preamps (just not this one).  The MT really needs an external pre when recording quiet sources.

[BobW]

So how does it sound FOB with 50 - 100db+ SPL into a pair of DPA4060s run on a battery box ?