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ENG recorders

Catfish

18 years ago

I'm interested in obtaining a portable recorder for outside interviews and vox-pops. There seem to be about four or five contenders at the moment. Fostex Pro FR-2, Marantz PMD 660 and PMD 671, Tascam HD-P2 and the MiniDisk HHB MDP 500.
In the collective experience of the forum, does any one of these come out a winner, and why?
I haven't seen any comparisons, and they are all roughly within the same ball park, price wise.
What are your thoughts, and have I missed any other recorders?
I also intend to match one of these with a Beyerdynamics M58 ENG mic, and may need a pair of Remote Audio HM-7506 sound isolation headphones since I will probably be recording at a motor racing circuit from time to time. A short shotgun Rode mic is also on my wish list.
Your input and experience would be appreciated on this matter.
Cheers,
Catfish

February 16, 2006 @03:59pm

dpd

18 years ago

I own a PMD-671 w/ Lexar 80x CF cards. I can't vouch for the others, but I'd stay the heck away from anything with a MiniDisk in it for two reasons:
1) Why would you consider buying into a compressed format?
2) Why would you consider buying a field recorder that uses rotating media (e.g. motors)?
The PMD-671 has been great, so far. I don't know why you need 24 bit / 96K for that application, however.
I'm trying to buy a PMD-660 for interview work but the PMD-671 has better preamps, etc.

February 17, 2006 @04:56am

DAS

18 years ago

If you have the budget this is a really good unit.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PCMD1/

February 17, 2006 @01:09pm

dpd

18 years ago

as much as I like Sony, I have one word on this thing:
PUKE
a 'professional' recorder that uses a 1/8th inch mini jacks for external mic input, line input/output, headphone out? Built-in CF memory only?
Full specs here: http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/DisplayModel?m=10013&p=10&sp=83&id=82662
Take my word for it, call Sweetwater and buy yourself a Marantz PMD-671 then order some Lexar 80x professional CF cards and go to town - you won't be disappointed.
Full PMD-671 specs here: http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=3689&CatID=19&SubCatID=180

February 18, 2006 @02:56am

howlingwolf487

17 years ago

My unviersity uses a Marantz PMD 660 for remote recording. As a Broadcasting major I know that getting the audio for a spur-of-the-moment event can be very difficult. I've used the PMD 660 to record many nature sounds for natural sounds to layer behind radio plays, etc. and the 660 was great. Nice and clean (of course the mic played a big part as well).

November 9, 2006 @06:59am

Smithcok

17 years ago

Dont forget about the Edirol R-09
It has clean-sounding mics and is very reliable. Little less expensive than the the sony :P
As far as vouching for its sound goes, im in a university setting, and whenever I do live recordings of orchestras, bands, choirs etc etc, I always use the R-09 as backup. (Just in case something goes wrong with the masterlinks). The sound quality is better than acceptable and the unit is very reliable.

November 9, 2006 @03:45pm

Catfish

17 years ago

Thanks for the info. I eventually went for the new Zoom H4 and am just getting to grips with it. It seems to do what I want so I'm happy.
Cheers

November 11, 2006 @05:43am