H4

[Eric Poncet [NunaSoft]]

Hi all,

I bought one Zoom H4 recently, after a careful study of what was on the 
market. I need it for upcoming fieldwork in Central Yukon. So far I've 
done a bunch of tests, and they all pass!
It cost me $379 (CAN$). This device has all the features I was dreaming 
of (and I'm quite a dreamer when it comes to technology and languages...).
As the guy has XLR plugs and Phantom Power, I'll use it with an AKG 
C451B (very good pencil mike) and/or an Audio-Technica AT897 (great 
shotgun mike).
I'll record everything in WAV (uncompressed) on a 2GB SD card (it's the 
max size managed by the H4). Having an SD slot on my laptop, I'll be 
able to burn those raw recordings on an audio CD in a snap, freeing up 
space on the SD card AND archiving the data in a standard format 
playable by any CD player around.
This will hopefully give great recordings of Elders' speeches, 
performances, songs, nature sounds, allowing for lots of linguistic work 
on all this cultural material.

FYI, it manages MP3 pretty well also, with several bitrates available 
(including VBR=Variable Bit Rate).

There's one remaining question, though: I have no clue, so far, about 
the robustness of the device. (Yukon) Time will tell...

A huge "Thank You" to Phil and all participants for their outstanding 
job on ILAT!!!

Cheers from Montreal,
Eric
http://www.nunasoft.com

phil cash cash a écrit :
> This interesting product came out earlier this year, so take a peek:
>
> Samson H2 - Handy Recorder
> http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1916
>
> If you haven't already checked out their H4 just follow the links on the
> above page.  I would suggest looking at some H4 reviews via Google,
> however.
>
> Anyway, just some more new ultra-portable gadgetry for the 
> language-oriented
> masses.   If you have one, let us know how you what you do with it and so
> on...
>
> Phil
>