digital recording - Edirol R9

[Chris Letts]

We have previously used the EDIROL R1 for digital recording, and it has
some shortcomings.
We've now been using the new EDIROL R9 for a couple of months, and I'm
pleased to report that it is an improvement over the R1 in many ways:

1. the built-in microphone is more sensitive and gives perfectly good
speech recordings in any normal room setting (the R1 was too insensitive
for some uses)
2. Recordings seem to have less noise, especially so if using mains
power.
3. The battery life, though not wonderful, is much better than the R1 -
we use rechargeable AA batteries and seem to get several hours per
charge (a shame though that the batteries have to be taken out for
recharge)
4. our users (mostly students) have found it much easier to use -
virtually a 'one-touch' recording.

The only thing we're not sure about is whether the slightly flimsy USB
/battery cover will stand up to regular use.

We'll almost certainly be adopting this as our standard machine for most
speech recording.

Chris Letts, 
Technical Site Manager, 
School of Education, Communication & Language Sciences, 
King George VI Building 
University of Newcastle, 
Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU,

U.K.