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Re: [microsound] [ot] minidisc recorders
what about portable CD recorders - like the Marantz?
On Jan 20, 2005, at 2:00 PM, derek holzer wrote:
I used a Sony MZ-R35 for years. It's from about 1999, back when they
built things a bit more sturdy, and it has yet to fail me. I'd be a
little nervous about the newer make MDs, which get closer and closer
to the size of a credit card and generally don't look nearly so
robust. I also really liked the "jog-wheel" function. See here:
http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-R35.html
In general, however, the things I disliked about Minidiscs were this:
1) Bad AD converters, very noisy!!! Consumer grade stuff will always
be like this. I tend to record *very* tiny sounds, and every dB of
noise floor I can remove counts.
2) No digital outs. This means the DA converter of the MD, and then
the AD converter of whatever you are capturing with, add up even more
noise. You could get a full-sized MD deck for the digital out, but
that doesn't really help you "in the field" if you need to capture and
edit something right away.
3) No professional connections. This means balanced, XLR microphone
connections. Ask any audio technician, and they will probably tell you
that the mismatched impedence between a pro mike and the
consumer-grade input probably adds more noise than all the other
factors combined!
3) No digital ins [at least on newer models, my old MZ-R35 had an
optical line in]. This I suppose is some Digital Rights Manipulation
scheme, to keep clean copies of CDs from making their way between MD
players. But it's a pain if you want to bypass the crappy MD mike
inputs and AD converters with an aftermarket preamp/AD unit. The only
consolation is that you can use an external preamp and then the line
input, allowing the use of balanced XLRs [if you have such a preamp],
but the transfer to the MD is still analog.
OTOH, the ATRAC compression never bothered me too much. But for the
lack of professional mike inputs, I might even consider the new HiMD
format except that the software to extract the audio is proprietary
Sony stuff, and I'm just not down with that. Use an open standard and
you'll get my attention and hard-earned cash.
I would recommend to get a portable DAT from EBay, but as most people
know, this standard is going to be quite dead soon enough, as nobody
makes parts or tapes any more. A Sony TR-[something] usually goes for
between USD 300 and 500, and I am still using just such a model.
Inputs aren't great, but it has full digital IO which is something I
really needed. I could record something and then immediately offload
it digitally to my laptop and get to work on it.
My honest advice would be to save your pennies a little longer and go
for one of the new hard-disk based recorders. They usually have much
better inputs and AD converters [although maybe not with XLR inputs],
can do 24/96 [usually] and most importantly are fully digital IO
compatible, so you can use whatever preamp/AD you want, so can easily
offload to your computer with no sound quality loss or stupid
proprietary formats.
The R1 Editrol looks like a nice starter unit, and goes for +/- USD
500:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/R1Edirol/
Getting a recordable MP3 player [like the some of the IRiver models]
is an option, but your still stuck with many problems, namely
compressed audio format and crappy consumer-grade inputs. In general,
there seems to be a huge conspiricy on the part of hardware
manufacturers to keep decent-quality sound recording *out* of the
hands of the masses...
Good luck,
d.
--
derek holzer ::: http://www.umatic.nl
---Oblique Strategy # 36:
"Consult other sources
-promising
-unpromising"
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