Recommend a good, cheap-ish portable minidisc recorder?

[John Vulich]

*Before buying a microtrack, read user feedback on it. There are a number of comments that have been made on KVR as well, don't read them at your own peril*

Eh tried doing a search in the hardware part of the forum, no results.

What has been said about it.

You're looking in the wrong forum...

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... microtrack

[james0tucson]

*Before buying a microtrack, read user feedback on it. There are a number of comments that have been made on KVR as well, don't read them at your own peril*

Eh tried doing a search in the hardware part of the forum, no results.

What has been said about it.

It's not clear what the problem is, but I believe people are finding the noise floor to be higher than they'd like. A really good, though expensive solution, is PDAudio from Core Sound (Len Moskowitz).

I wanted to buy an Edirol R-1 last summer, for recording environmental sounds in the field, but I could not obtain one in time. Ended up using the MD. I'm not actually unhappy with the MD -- good price per minute, fidelity beyond human listening perception, etc., but it has 2 fatal flaws: 1, it makes a whirring noise that the mics will pick up even if the MD is buried in my pack, and 2, I absolutely hate the idea of being locked out of my own work by a proprietary format or any copy protection.

Still waiting for a solution, which I basically expect to come as maybe a side effect of a decent video camera that happens to have a really good audio channel.

[John Vulich]

Or hopefully M-Audio will rectify the noise problem, with the Microtrack, in later versions. It seems like an ideal device otherwise.

[drinelli]

*Before buying a microtrack, read user feedback on it. There are a number of comments that have been made on KVR as well, don't read them at your own peril*

Eh tried doing a search in the hardware part of the forum, no results.

What has been said about it.

You're looking in the wrong forum...

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... microtrack

I see, I made a post there, would be interesting what people think about this.

[drinelli]

My point in that topic, is that it could be the headphones, or the headphones output that is noisy, as I exsperienced the same with a md recorder I own.

[John Vulich]

What about the Marantz PMD660?

http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp? ... bCatID=169

[img]http://www.d-mpro.com/users/FolderData/ ... _large.jpg[/img]

[drinelli]

What about the Marantz PMD660?

http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp? ... bCatID=169

[img]http://www.d-mpro.com/users/FolderData/ ... _large.jpg[/img]

What is its price.

[drinelli]

oops £819.99 at Turnkey in Britain, too me it sounds like the price of a very decent Pc indeed.

[lsd]

I've got a portable Sony Mini Disk lying (MZ-R37, same one some one posted a link to on ebay) around I never used it, ever. It is in mint condition and I have all the accesories. It came with the big Sony Stero Mic as well, but I want to keep that. PM me if interested, I'll let it go cheap.

[drinelli]

Wait a Minute that was the 670, 660, was 300 to 400 cheaper, but that was a solid state recorder, does that not mean you can`t take it with you.

[drinelli]

Before selling it to JerGoertz, maybe you should give him its specification, I am curious too.

[.jon]

Still waiting for a solution, which I basically expect to come as maybe a side effect of a decent video camera that happens to have a really good audio channel.

Even the XL-1 has a sub-par audio channel... and then I realize that maybe the consumer models have better ones.

http://www.aaton.com/products/sound/cantar/

"cheapness is sujective, quality objective"


I'm looking at (realistic ) options myself, too, as my trusty old MD, the first ever recording MD Walkman, is finally starting to show it's age. I'd love to have a device recording straight wavs.

[drinelli]

Maybe I should learn to use my Md Recorder better, instead of dreaming of devices that costs like a farm house in the countryside.

[opia]

Eh tried doing a search in the hardware part of the forum, no results.

What has been said about it.

I'm looking to get something to make field recordings; looked at the Edirol R-1 and the M-Audio flash-based recorder (don't remmeber the name) and the cheapest I saw them was for around $400, which is too rich for my blood.

[Spratman]

It's not clear what the problem is, but I believe people are finding the noise floor to be higher than they'd like. A really good, though expensive solution, is PDAudio from Core Sound (Len Moskowitz).

It's that issue and the ones noted here: http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_ ... track.html
Particularly the part about phantom power.

I wanted to buy an Edirol R-1 last summer, for recording environmental sounds in the field, but I could not obtain one in time. Ended up using the MD. I'm not actually unhappy with the MD -- good price per minute, fidelity beyond human listening perception, etc., but it has 2 fatal flaws: 1, it makes a whirring noise that the mics will pick up even if the MD is buried in my pack, and 2, I absolutely hate the idea of being locked out of my own work by a proprietary format or any copy protection.

Well I agree that Sony's copy protection scheme is a bit irritaiting, but the loosening of restrictions on uploads from user recordings has been a real god send. I just digitally download to my pc, convert to wav automatically with Sonicstage and then burn to cd. Then I don't need to worry about the MD disc itself or anything else.

I find the bag I put my md in is dense enough. Some models appear to be more or less noisey than others to, and some users report signicant noise and others not so - I think at times it depends on whether or not the disc you have in it is nearly full and other factors like how the disc is mounted and the condition of the unit itself. Sometimes I've found just ejecting a disc, giving it a waggle and pushing it back in again reduces the noise significantly. Not that I have had a lot of noise issues, only done that once.

Personally I'd hope for something better in the future, but whether we're going to see something better with the same battery life and decent dac/adc like with current MD's I'm not very sure. My sister recently bought a Sandisk solid state recorder and it's pretty awful. There have been rumours about ipods getting proper recording abilities on the web, but I believe they are mostly made up by people who are just wishing/"podcasting"(or whatever you want to call some of the dribble people stream to the web) and don't really want decent recording abilities etc.

If Sony take the next generation of HiMD/MD Walkman's into the solidstate recording arena then we may see something with less noise - but yet again there will probably be some copy protection snafus. Part of the issue at the moment with MD is the fact that Sony has been trying to push ATRAC and their own online store etc. MD recorders up till now have been about both recording and playing music - as long as that is the case it's quite likely there will be some kind of copy protection scheme.

As a digital music player though HiMD's do seem to work really well and sound much better than a lot of other alternatives I've had the chance to play with. They're obviously a bit expensive to buy just to listen to music with, but then again it depends on how you look at it I guess and whether or not you get a really good deal on one. In the past few months I've seen some being sold retail at like ~$150AUD with microphone, 5xblank discs, and a bag. Bit hard to beat at that sort of price - not going to get a new ipod for that price.

Or hopefully M-Audio will rectify the noise problem, with the Microtrack, in later versions. It seems like an ideal device otherwise.

I'd probably wait for a completely new model.

My point in that topic, is that it could be the headphones, or the headphones output that is noisy, as I exsperienced the same with a md recorder I own.

If you used earphones with a different impedance from the standard Sony sets you may get "noise". That's about the only time I've ever got noise other than the music I was playing out of the Sony gear I own. Apart from motor noise when recording with an MD. You'll certainly get noise if you record with earphones rather than a proper mic to.

Spratman