Solid State recorder

[Anthony Jukes]

Hi Stephen
I recently used the Zoom H1, which at about $100 is probably the
cheapest fairly acceptable option, and they are widely available.
They are easy to use and can give good results, but build quality
seems pretty cheap (well, it *is* pretty cheap) and the internal
microphones are very susceptible to both handling noise and wind
noise. It's probably worth getting the accessory kit (APH-1) which
includes a foam windshield and little tripod etc.
It records on micro-SD cards which are very widely available (and tiny
and easy to lose), and uses a single AA battery which it says will
last 10 hrs, and I would say that is probably accurate.

Personally I far prefer the Sony PCM-M10 - although about three times
the cost of the H1 it is still probably within your budget at
$250-300. It is much more solid and the onboard microphones sound
better to my ears. It recorded more than 30 hrs on 2 AA batteries, has
4GB internal memory and also has a micro-SD slot. Like the H1 it only
has a stereo miniplug input for an external microphone which is fine
for smaller lavalier mics and the like. If you want XLR inputs within
your budget you will have to opt for the Zoom H4n.

Hope that helps
Anthony


On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 10:19 PM, Stephen Morey <S.Morey at latrobe.edu.au> wrote:
> Dear RNLD list,
>
>
>
> I need some advice as to what would be the best most up-to-date solid state
> recorder to buy for around $200-$300 , that would run on batteries. I want
> to buy one for use in Myanmar by someone who is right now in Bangkok and who
> needs to buy it in the next one or two days. I don't think there will be
> access to a laptop download when our colleague is in the field, so we'll
> need a machine that uses flash cards or some other kind of memory card -
> preferably something that we can buy several of without spending too much
> money.
>
>
>
> Many thanks to all
>
>
>
> Stephen Morey
>
> Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
>
> La Trobe University