TASCAM DR-680

Solid and simple to use

AMAZING BANG FOR THE BUCK

I use this machine with Schoeps, Neumann, DPA and Royer mics along with a Sound Devices USBPre2 to enable 8 channels of mics. In short, brilliant! The onboard pres and A/D is first-class. The only weak link is the SD card-- I use only SanDisk and Lexar after another brand developed a bad sector and I lost a few seconds of a concert. With a few small improvements this could be a Nagra VI killer. It already wins the cost war-- quite handily.

Excellent for the Price!!!

I've owned and have been using this unit for about 6 months now. It is extremely easy to use, and the number of inputs for the price you pay is unmatched!
The preamps are clean, my Sanken COS 11D and Sennheiser MKH416 sound great through it!
The menus are easy to navigate, the display is fairly easy to read and tells you everything you need to know.
There are only two downsides I can see that hold it back: No timecode in/out, and its power options.
Thus far, not having timecode hasn't been a big issue for me, though sometimes it would have been nice.
Eight AA batteries for 5hrs runtime is absolutely ridiculous, instead I bought a Goal Zero Sherpa 120 portable power supply (which outputs 12V DC) and spliced power into the Tascam. Works flawlessly for about 2 full production days!

If you don't absolutely need Timecode, BUY THIS UNIT!

A Good Location Multitracker with Limitations

Can't comment on the mic pres because I come in from an external board, but the A/Ds sound very good to my ears. Biggest drawback for anyone who wants to capture at high fs and bit depth but with repurpose option for Red Book CD is the lack of 88.2 kHz sampling rate. This is a HUGE oversight in my opinion.