RE: Portable field recorders (again)

["Goddard, Duncan" <goddard.duncan@mtvne.com>]

>>I've got the Zoom H2 and I'm happy with it.<<

is that the tiny cheap one that records surround-sound with it's four
built-in mics? gives you a choice of mp3 or wav for stereo, & can use
either pair or all four in a pseudo-surround mode when making mp3, while
genuine surround is wav only...
nice machine.
I've had mine for about two months, & have used it to make all of these
variations, onto a 4GB card. 

made a full four wav surround recording of a recent gig in a church in
philly, filled the 4GB card.... 
it's great being able to adjust the "amount of church" in the stereo
mixdown, & I'm looking forward to attempting a 5.1 version of same.

I like it's little hat for outdoors too. but it feels so light &
insubstantial.... battery life is reasonable..... I wish I could figure
out how to summon the backlight without actually adjusting anything....
two counters- one for rec time & one for rec remain..... decent metering
with overload indicator....

one tiny problem- even with careful adjustment of the record level, it's
possible to overdrive the unit when making line-in recordings, because
there's a pre-amp or something between the line-in socket & the level
control VCA. that said, the mixer it was recording from is a behringer
rackmount job (one of the new-ish ones, & pretty good at it's job) that
has an extremely hot main output. 

I don't use the USB connection, preferring to take the card out & stick
it straight into an adaptor & thence the mac. the files open in i-tunes
& can be renamed, burned to disc, whatever.

there's surprisingly little handling noise, given the plasticky
construction, & there's a three-setting hardware sensitivity switch for
the built-in mics.
I have made recordings from the "loudspeaker" in a cellphone, holding
the two gadgets about 18" apart; only the left channel of the zoom seems
to be affected by the familiar cellphone digital chatter. I think the
Faraday cage affair around the mics is better grounded at one side,
maybe. the capsules themselves are standard issue- what do you want for
this price? :-)

very impressed, overall, at this price-point. we have come a long way
from the sony WM-R2...... (their first recording walkman, & yes, I have
one!)

duncan.