[microsound] Re: affordable field recording mic

[Dino Bramanti <Dino.Bramanti@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hallo,
I'm a not_so_happy owner of an iHP120 since 3-4 months.
I've bought iHP120 in order to find a replacement for my
Sony MD recorder aimed at recording sound samples and doing field
rercordings.
The thing is attractive because it records in a uncompressed PCM format
(.wav) and it is seen as an
external drive from your computer, allowing for a fast (USB speed in my
non-USB2 powerbook case, but USB2 if your computer supports it). In
addition it is very portable and light.

BUT

-no way of setting rec level on the fly while recording. It can be done
digging down into menus AND ONLY
when in rec-standby.
-no way of having on screen level meters for what you are recording. This
is simply the most idiot thing
i was expecting from a not so cheap toy.
-external mic input provides an electret level power which cannot be
disabled. This means that a plain dynamic mic can get disturbed by it.
-internal mic is completely unuseable due to the fact that it will record
every hard disk noise
present. When it kicks in (very very often) a high pitched whine will take
on your recordings.
-it seems (but I did not verify it by myself due to the nature of samples
so far recorded) that samples are skipped when copied from record buffer to
the disk during recording. This leads to glitches in recorded sound. This
is a shame if you consider that main driver for me to buy iHP was sound
quality w/o compression.


iRIVER folks dont seem so focused on resolving these issues that are
related to different user base needs respect to the standard iPodder user.
They seems more committed to upgrade firmware to satisfy first the needs of
digital jukebox usewrs. Probably they are not aware that if iHP has any
reason to exist is probably beacuse it gives something more than iPod or a
standard mp3 reader. But if they don't care of it and they don't fix it in
a decent way from my side I have thrown away my euros. And being it
firmware upgradeable doesn't help if they do not want to write or fix the
firmware making it as good as the hardware let you believe...



Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 13:36:22 -0700
To: <microsound@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Biagio Azzarelli" <biagio@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: affordable field recording mic
Message-ID: <000001c42717$250fa590$6701a8c0@xxxxxxxxxx>

I'm expecting a new toy in the mail any day.

It's an iRiver iHP 120 hard drive player/recorder.
Kinda like iPod but more capabilities. I want
to buy decent microphone for the purpose of
field recordings but don't know where to begin.

Any suggestions or stores to visit? I live in
San Francisco, CA.

thanks,

Biagio Azzarelli
biagio@xxxxxxxxxxxx




---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
website: http://www.microsound.org