Digital recorders

[Denny Moore]

Well, in the Amazon region of Brazil the Zoom H4n has held up well-- 
no problems as yet.  It does have a 'stamina' setting to conserve 
batteries but we haven't used it.  Its appeal, for the price, is the 
quality of the built-in stereo mike and the fact that it has XLR 
inputs and phantom power for professional microphones.  We use is 
with a headworn Shure WH20-XLR microphone (recommended by a 
phonetician) when it is necessary to exclude ambient noise and record 
one person.  The signal on that microphone is a bit weak but it 
reduces noise very efficiently and the track can be normalized (on 
the Zoom H4n or via sound editing program) without having much 
amplified noise.

-Denny Moore, Museu Goeldi


At 02:00 PM 6/1/2011, plichtab at msu.edu wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Regarding the recent question about inexpensive digital recorders, I 
>believe that the Zoom H4n and Sony PCM-M10 are the minumum that 
>qualifies for a quality field device. Of course, there are cheaper 
>recorders that can get the job done. Of the two, I would recommend 
>the Sony PCM-M10 due to its far superior battery life and a really 
>good microphone pre-amplifier. However, it does not have XLR inputs 
>onboard, so if you must use XLR inputs, you'll have to use the H4n. 
>I have tested both recorders thoroughly, with a variety of 
>microphones. Here are my reviews, if you're interested:
>
>http://bartus.org/akustyk/H4N
>
>http://bartus.org/akustyk/PCMM10
>
>Hope it helps. Please, feel free to email me if you have any further 
>questions regarding recorders or microphones.
>Best,
>Bartek Plichta
>http://bartus.org