You can't really tell from the photo above, because it turns out I'm much better with an audio recorder than a digital camera, but this is a picture of Little West 12th Street in Manhattan's Meat Packing district. I snapped this shot at 2:30 in the morning on a recent Saturday night. And the place was hopping. There were dozens of people wandering between clubs and bars on this corner, and this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Throughout the city there are bars, clubs, and restaurants regularly open until 4:00am or later. There's a reason they call New York the city that never sleeps. But what happens when you live next to a club that's blasting music all night long? There are a series of community boards that represent Manhattan residents who have been pressuring new liquor license applicants to close up shop at 2:00am or at least to better police what goes on inside and outside of their clubs. And while the number of liquor licensed establishments that are choosing to close early is still relatively small, the community board recommendations have gained so much weight with the state liquor authority that it's getting hard to open a bar without getting approval from one of these boards.
For my latest NPR story I tried to look at both sides of this issue. There's been a lot of reporting in the local press over the last few weeks. But for the most part reporters talked to one community board member and the lawyer for the New York Nightlife association. I talked to them both, but also headed out way past my bedtime to find some of the people who enjoy New York's nightlife scene and find out what they think. My editor also pushed me to actually find someone who lives next to some of these noisy bars, and I'm glad she did because that made the story a lot stronger. All told, I conducted 5 sets of interviews for this short story and had to leave a lot of things out. But I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out.
For anyone keeping track, this piece was recorded with a Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder and an Electrovoice RE-50 dynamic microphone.
I've just finished uploading my first ever concert recording to Archive.org. A few of my favorite bands are taper-friendly, meaning they allow fans to bring audio recorders to shows and share recordings with other fans. Typically the only restriction is that you can't sell the audio, which seems more than fair.
So with that, I bring you Mike Doughty's Band, recorded live at the Williamsburg Music Hall in Brooklyn, New York on April 10, 2008. This is my first concert recording, but I think it came out quite well. I attribute that almost entirely to the Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder I was using. I used the internal mics, stood by the back of the room, and pointed the recorder at the stage.
I was quite happy withe clarity and volume of the recording. The only problems I've had involve uploading the files properly to Archive.org... I'm pretty sure I must have done something wrong with the file naming, because while the FLAC versions of the songs have metadata like song titles, the MP3 and OGG Vorbis files do not.
Anyway, have a listen and let me know what you think.
Transom's equipment Jeff Towne has posted an excellent review of the Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder, complete with a ton of audio clips that should give you a pretty good idea of what the recorder sounds like using internal mics and a variety of external mics.
I think I've already talked up the D50's strong points, so I'll just focus on the flaws Towne found:
- The mic/line input switch is bafflingly located near the headphone jack, not the mic jack
- The mini inputs will not provide phantom power
- If you're using the internal mics, you will hear a click when you hit the track divide button, and no matter what microphone you're using there will be a slight disconnect between the before and after track, but you'd have to listen really closely to notice it.
- It would be nice to have an option to record in mono
I spent the day covering the Greener Gadgets conference for AOL's Green Daily yesterday. As part of our coverage, I conducted a handful of interviews, which I recorded using my Sony PCM-D50 recorder and an EV RE-50 microphone. If you want to hear my gear in action, check out my interview with artist and environmental activist Chris Jordan.
I have a few more interviews which I'll be posting at Green Daily over the next few days. The exhibition space was a little noisy, so these are hardly studio quality interviews. But I think they should give you an idea of how well my mic and recorder combo works for recording interviews.
Oh yeah, and Chris Jordan's work is kind of amazing and thought provoking, so you should definitely check out his work and my interview for that reason too.
I was out doing a recording session with my Sony PCM-D50 yesterday, and as always I was making sure to keep an eye on the battery meter. I've never had a battery die unexpectedly in this recorder, but I was kind of wondering what would happen to a recording if I suddenly lost power.
So today I decide to run a quick test. I started a recording, and instead of hitting stop to end it, I hit the power switch and watched my unit shut down.
When I powered back up, the WAV file was intact. It stopped at the moment when I turned off the recorder. Now theoretically, if your batteries fall out (unlikely given the sturdy battery casing) or if your batteries suddenly die, this might not work, since the unit could lack the power necessary to close off a recording.
But I'm almost as confident that I won't lose recordings using a PCM-D50 as I would be using a DAT or cassette recorder. Most other low end digital recorders (including minidisc recorders), need to take a few seconds to save a file after you're finished recording. Otherwise the data is not written permanently to the disk and you could lose data if your battery is removed or your unit is abruptly turned off.
I recently bought two gadgets that are awesome and doing two very different things. The Sony PCM-D50 is an amazing little digital audio recorder that I've been using for my work as a radio journalist and audio producer. The Asus Eee PC is an amazing little (really little, we're talking seven inch screen and 2.1 pound weight) PC that I've been using for blogging on the go.
While I don't really expect to use my Eee PC for radio production much more than I expect to use my PCM-D50 for blogging, the truth is there is some overlap. Every now and again I record interviews on my digital audio recorders for podcasts, or in some cases as soundtracks to videos I produce for this or other web sites. And the Eee PC is powerful enough to run basic audio editing utilities when I need to make some quick edits on the go.
There's just one problem. While the Eee PC instantly recognized my Zoom H4 recorder when I plugged it in (letting me drag and drop audio files, or even use the Zoom as an external microphone for Skype calls), the Eee PC doesn't recognize my PCM-D50.
If I were running Windows, I could install the driver that Sony includes for stubborn PCs that fail to recognize the PCM-D50. But there's no Linux driver at the moment. So the best solution I've been able to find so far is to scrap the custom Linux distribution that comes with the Eee PC and install Ubuntu. OK, scrap might not be the right word. I'm not quite ready to give up on Xandros. But I've found that when you boot Ubuntu (or eeeXubuntu to be specific) from a flash card, the Eee PC recognizes the PCM-D50 as an external hard drive with no problem.
As an added bonus, it's much easier to install Audacity 1.3.3 on Ubuntu than on Xandros. That's because Audacity 1.3+ is still in beta, even though it's pretty stable. The newer beta versions of Audacity include a whole bunch of features that are missing in the 1.2.6 version that you can download and install on Xandros.
So right now I'm carrying a 4GB SD card around with my Eee PC. It has eeeXubuntu installed, meaning I can boot into either Xandros using the main memory or eeeXubuntu using the flash card. There's only about 1.5 GB of free space on the card, and even less on the main memory, so I have no plans to do any serious audio editing on this setup. But as soon as the eeeXubuntu developer adds a few more features like support for all the Fn keys on the Eee PC, I'll probably install the operating system to the computer's main memory and use the 4GB SD card just for storage, which should provide plenty of space for editing long interviews.
The Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder does a great job of bridging the gap between consumer and professional-grade electronics. This $500 recorder sports many of the same features as its sibling, the $1800 Sony PCM-D1 recorder, plus a few new features that its older brother lacks.
While Sony is selling the PCM-D50 for less than a third the price of the PCM-D1, (due to some cheaper parts including lower quality built-in condenser microphones), the recorder still costs twice as much as a Zoom H4, a popular recorder that appears to have a few things the PCM-D50 is missing, like XLR inputs and the ability to act as a PC audio I/O device. So is the Sony recorder worth the money? That depends on what you need in an audio recorder. For me the answer is a whopping yes. For you? Maybe not so much.
Let's take a look at what the PCM-D50 has to offer. First up, I put together a video overview of the unit.
There are a couple of things to consider when reviewing a digital audio recorder. How easy is it to use? How sturdy is it? What kind of support does it have for external hardware like flash memory and input/output devices? But probably the most important feature is sound quality.
Shortly after opening the box, I made a few sample recordings with the PCM-D50 which compared favorably with sound files I recorded using the Zoom H4. Today I ran a few more tests.
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You can make a reasonably decent sounding recording using the built-in stereo condenser microphones. They have a cleaner, more natural tone than the built-in mics on the Zoom H4. But the PCM-D50's microphones are incredible sensitive to wind.
And when I say wind, I mean any a teeny tiny little breeze. If you breathe the wrong way across those mics, you'll get some awful noise. In fact, you can hear in this sample how much noise just walking across a room generates. I would not under any circumstances use the built-in mics outdoors without purchasing the overpriced wind screen.
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When you plug a microphone into the PCM-D50, everything changes. My EV RE-50 dynamic microphone has become useful again. While the Sony recorder lacks the Zoom H4's XLR plugs, it has a much better preamp, which means that external dynamic microphones like the RE-50 sound much much cleaner.
That lack of an XLR input is probably going to turn a lot of people off from this recorder. The line, mic, and headphone jacks are all 1/8th inch mini inputs. But while the line in and out jacks are the same type of cheap plastic jobs that wind up breaking all the time on low-end recorders and music players, the mic input and headphone jack both seem to be metal. You get a nice satisfying click when inserting a plug into either jack, and I think you'd have to try pretty hard to break them.
One of the features that I was most looking forward to trying out was the limiter. Normally I don't play around with the effects on recorders, since I want things to sound as natural as possible. But the Sony rep I spoke with at AES pointed out that this limiter works in an interesting fashion.
Essentially the unit is always making two recordings, even though only one is being saved to the disc. The second recording is about 20db lower then the first. So if there's a sudden volume spike, the recorder will switch to the quieter signal and then shift back to the louder signal. You can vary the time it takes to return to normal to 150 milliseconds, 1 second, or 1 minute.
But the first time I tested the limiter, I noticed that the shift from the quiet channel to the louder one was pretty jarring. After a few tries, I realized that this was because I was only recording room tone and then a very loud sound. So what you hear afterwards is nothing but the room tone being brought back up. If you're recording voice, music, or something a bit louder than... well, nothing, then the limiter should work pretty well. Still, I'm not sure I'd recommend using it unless you really need it.
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Things I like about the PCM-D50
- High quality recordings with little background hiss
- Solid build quality
- Automatically detects when you plug in a microphone and if you're in the middle of recording when you plug in the mic, the PCM-D50 will switch inputs from the internal mics to the external microphone
- Large easy to use buttons
- Large, easy to read display (with a dedicated button for turning the backlight on and off)
- Although Sony sells a $70 tripod for the PCM-D50, you can easily screw in any standard camera tripod.
- A real honest to goodness volume control knob (which is missing on many minidisc and low-end flash audio recorders)
- Long battery life (You get an estimated 14 hours record time using 4 AA batteries)
- 4GB internal memory (enough to record 6.5 hours of 44.1KHz/16 bit stereo audio)
- Expandable using Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo or Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo cards
- 5 second pre-record buffer lets you monitor while in record/pause mode and start a recording 5 seconds before you hit the record button
- Divide track button lets you create create a new WAV file without stopping a recording (something you cannot do with the Zoom H4)
- There's some handling noise when using the built-in mics. This means you won't want to adjust many settings or hit the track divide button while recording with the internal microphones.
- Seriously? $50 for a Don King-style wind screen?
- If you don't touch your recorder for 10 minutes, it will enter low power consumption mode automatically, which is great. But since the screen is off, it would be easy to forget that your unit is still running and you could run your battery down before remembering to turn the unit all the way off.
- The PCM-D50 uses an odd system for storing audio files. There are 9 folders on your unit. You can record up to 99 WAV files in any folder. That means if you're in folder 7, you'll start recording in folder 7, whether the previous 6 folders are full or not. So when you plug the unit into your computer to transfer files, you'll have to remember which folder your audio is in or search through all the folders until you find what you're looking for.
- If the batteries are removed while you're recording, you'll lose data. Not much surprise there. But a recording will also stop (and you'll lose data) if you plug in a USB cable, because the USB connection takes precedence. That just doesn't make any sense. Why not have a pop up menu ask if you'd like to stop the recording?
- The user manual mentions a carrying case with a belt clip, but it's only available in Japan.
- There's a slight delay between the time you hit the record button an the start of a recording.
- When you hit record, you're in record/pause mode. You have to hit pause in order to start a recording.
- While it's great that you can use external memory, Sony has a habit of using proprietary formats like Memory Stick instead of standard formats like SD cards or Compact Flash cards. They've one-upped themselves this time by only supporting two very specific types of Memory Stick cards, the Pro Duo and Pro-HG Duo. I get the feeling a lot of people who don't read the manual very carefully will be buying the wrong kind of memory.
- There's no option for recording in mono. If you plug in a mono microphone, you'll record a dual mono track (ie: the same signal will go to the left and right channels). If you could record in mono, the 4GB of internal memory would be enough space for 13 hours of 44.1KHz/16 bit recordings.
- The Memory Stick door is a bit flimsy, especially when compared with the rest of the unit.
- While the PCM-D50 will play back MP3 files, there's no option to record using MP3 or any other compressed format. This isn't a biggie, since you'll probably get a higher quality MP3 file by transferring a WAV to your desktop for conversion anyway.
- Act as an audio I/O device for a computer
- Act as a 4-track recorder (even though you can only record to one channel at a time)
- Record in mono
- Accept XLR inputs
- Runs on 2 AA batteries instead of 4
I'm sure I've left out a few things, so leave me questions in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.
Oh, and to give you a sense of size and how the PCM-D50 compares to other recorders here are a few shots of the unit next to the Zoom H4, a Sony MZ-R50 minidisc recorder, and an EV RE-50 microphone.
Links:
- Sony PCM-D50 technical specs (PDF)
- Sony PCM-D50 brochure (PDF)
- Sony PCM-D50 manual (PDF)
- XLR-1 Spec PDF sheet ($400 mini to XLR adapter)
A nice FedEx man rang my doorbell today and dropped of my brand new Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder. I won't be able to post a thorough review for another day or two, but here are some photos in the meantime.
Oh yeah, and I also couldn't resist giving the recorder a quick sound check. Keep in mind, I haven't read through the instruction manual yet, and I haven't tinkered with the settings very much. But my first impression is that while the internal mics have just about the same level of hiss as the mics on the Zoom H4, you get a much more natural sounding vocal tone with the PCM-D50.
You also do need to hold the PCM-D50 carefully when using the built-in mics. While you don't get as much handling noise as with the Zoom H4, you'll definitely notice some noise if you change your grip.
But the most impressive thing, and the reason I bought this recorder in the first place (aside from good hardware controls, a great limiter, a sturdy body, and 4GB internal memory), is that it sounds great with a dynamic microphone. Grab a good pair of headphones and listen for yourself.
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Just in time for the holidays, Sony and Marantz have begun shipping their new digital audio recorders. I'm already starting to hear reports that customers who pre-ordered Marantz PMD620 units have begun to receive them. I pre-ordered a Sony PCM-D50 back in October, and after several delays, retailers are starting to get these units in stock as well. But only in small quantities. I contacted the store I ordered from and found out that they had placed an order for 45 units and have only received 5 so far. I was number six on the list, so my recorder probably won't arrive until the second week in December. Expect a full review sometime around then.
The M-Audio Microtrack II is also scheduled to begin shipping soon, but haven't verified that anyone actually has it in stock yet.
I've had several people ask me recently which recorder I recommend. It all depends on your needs. I've decided that the popular Zoom H2 isn't right for me, primarily because I already have a Zoom H4 with most of the same features.
The Marantz PMD620 looks like a step up from the H2, in that it's a handheld recorder at twice the price from a company with a solid track record in this space. It lacks XLR inputs, but I'd be willing to wager that its mic preamps are better than those on the H2, resulting in a cleaner sound. That said, the PMD620 lacks the H2's 4 mic capsules and ability to act as a USB audio interface for a computer.
If you want good, but not great sound quality at a budget, I'd say go for the H2. If you want an easy to use recorder with a more solid casing, the PMD620 might be the way to go. I'll be curious to see if the sound quality with the internal mics is any better than the H2, and how the PMD620 sounds with external microphones.
If you need an XLR input, you'll probably want to shell out a few extra bucks and get a Marantz PMD660, PMD670, or Fostex FR2-LE. If you've got even more money to spare, check out the Tascam HD-P2, which sells for about $1000 or the Sound Devices 702, which is about twice that price. Both sound amazing compared with the sub-$600 recorders.
I've opted for the Sony PCM-D50 because it kind of blew me away when I tried it at AES. The sound quality with the built-in mics was excellent, sounding at least as good as my Zoom H4, but without the mic handling noise I get when I jiggle the case on the H4. Even though the PCM-D50 lacks XLR inputs, I was able to record an extraordinarily loud sample using an external dynamic microphone. And the hardware volume knob is a nice touch. On top of that, the PCM-D50 includes an advanced limiter feature that virtually guarantees your audio won't clip, and a pre-record buffer so that you'll almost never miss a recording. Oh yeah, and the ability to mark tracks on the fly.
At $500, I understand that the PCM-D50 might not be for everyone. And I have yet to test it in a quiet room, so I can't vouch for the quality of its recordings yet. But in my mind, it's definitely worth a bit more than the Marantz PMD620. But if you need phantom power for an external condenser mic or just like the heavy-duty feel of XLR inputs, you're probably better off going with the Fostex or higher end Marantz recorders.
Update: Reader Eric Diamond reports that his PCM-D50 has arrived, and he's impressed with the build quality and the sound quality. I'm a bit disappointed to hear that the unit is susceptible to handling noise, since I didn't detect any during my initial test (in an admittedly noisy room). But if you use an external mic, you won't get any handling noise, and you won't hear any sound when pressing the track mark button. And Diamond says the preamps are much cleaner and better suited for external mics than those on most low cost digital audio recorders.
You can read the rest of Diamond's impressions in the comments section of this post. If anyone else has received a PCM-D50, PMD620, Microtrack II or other new flash audio recorder, please let us know!
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So I went ahead and pre-ordered a Sony PCM-D50 flash audio recorder from Sweetwater a week or two back when I saw that the company planned to ship them out the same day they receive their stock. And that was supposed to be November 2nd.
Well, that was last week and I haven't heard a peep about my order. So I head over to the oft-updated sales page, only to see that the new estimated ship date is November 18th.
As far as I can tell, the problem is Sony's, not Sweetwater's, because I don't think anybody else has any of the digital audio recorders in stock yet. But I was kind of hoping to have another new toy this week. On the bright side, Sweetwater won't charge my credit card until the PCM-D50 ships, so I might wind up not having to pay for my new audio recorder and my new laptop in the same month.
Mix Magazine has posted a nice video showing off some of the Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder's features. I couldn't find a way to embed the video here, so you'll have to check it out over at Mix's site, but here are some of the highlights:
- The Sony PCM-D50 has cheaper mics and preamps than the PCM-D1
- The recorder comes with Sound Forge software for digital audio editing
- It includes a digital pitch control feature that will let you slow down a recording by up to 75% without affecting the tone (great for transcribing audio or learning to play a guitar track)
- A nice explanation of the pre-record feature (in a nutshell, when you enable pre-record, the PCM-D50 is always recording, but it's not saving to the hard drive. When you hit the record button, it will start the recording from 5 seconds prior to the instant you pressed the button).
- You can adjust the mic placement, which is something you can't do on the PCM-D1. When you're in a typical XY pattern, the right mic is recording the left channel and vice versa. But the recorder will automatically adjust that when the mics are pointed outward instead of inward.
It looks like Sony's PCM-D50 digital audio recorder will have a street price of $499. It carries a list price of $599, but a quick look at Pricegrabber shows that most online retailers will be selling it for a hundred bucks less.
Of course, none of these stores actually has the recorder in stock yet, although you can preorder it from several stores. The Sony rep at AES told me the PCM-D50 wouldn't be available until November, but at least one store seems to think that it will be available on October 19th.
The Sony PCM-D50, for the uninitiated, is a stripped down version of Sony's uber-high end PCM-D1 digital audio recorder. It has cheaper preamps, mics, and lacks the fancy VU meters on the front of the unit. But it also costs about 1/4th as much as the PCMD-D1 and if the sample recordings I made in a noisy room are anything to go by, it sounds fantastic.
The PCM-D50 also has some handy features missing from lower end recorders like the M-Audio Microtrack, Edirol R-09, and Zoom H2 and H4. For example, the ability to create new tracks without pausing recordings, an easy to use record volume knob for changing levels on the fly, and a solid metal body that minimizes handling noise when using the internal mics.
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Want to see the Sony PCM-D50 digital audio recorder up close and personal? While Sony isn't officially launching the device until November, the company had a few units on display at last week's Audio Engineering Society convention in New York, and while I got some audio, the folks over at Sonic State snagged a video interview with one of the Sony reps.
In fact, they got a whole bunch of interviews at AES. You can check out their complete gallery with video from Digidesign, Blue, Mackie, Cakewalk, Ableton, Steinberg, Korg, and others.
[via the comments at Create Digital Music]
Rumor has it that the Asus Eee PC will be released on November 1st. I'm taking this with a grain of salt. First we heard that the tiny Linux-based laptop from Asus would be available in September. Then we heard mid-October. Now that it's nearly mid-October it's not too surprising to hear the date's been pushed back again.
The price keeps going up too. I first got excited about the Eee PC because it sported a $199 price tag. It's not clear whether a $199 version will be available or if the cheapest model will be $259, with pricier models going for up to $399.
That said, the Eee PC is still one of the two bits of hardware coming out in November that I can't wait to get my hands on. Sony is set to release the PCM-D50 digital audio recorder next month, which will satisfy the audio geek in me. The Eee PC should take care of my mobile computing geek side.
What's so cool about the Eee PC? First up, it's a low-cost laptop for under $300. Second, it's tiny, weighing in at just about 2 pounds. That means you also only get a 7-inch screen on the basic model (the pricier models will have 10-inch screens). But this isn't a desktop replacement. Rather, it's a mobile computer that you can throw in a bag and take anywhere.
You don't get a powerhouse for your money. The Eee PC packs a 900 MHz celeron processor, from 256 to 512MB RAM, and from 2GB to 4GB of internal flash memory last we heard. The specs are subject to change. Early on we'd heard that the units would not be upgradeable, but it turns out upgrading the RAM is pretty easy.
One of the first things I did when I bought my Toshiba A135-4527 laptop was to create a partition for Linux. But after having tried several varieties of Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Fedora, I've come to the conclusion that there's not much Linux support for some of the hardware in this PC.
And while a true Linux wiz could probably hack together a solution, I'd rather just buy a system where the hardware and software are meant to work together. The Eee PC runs a custom version of Xandros. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do any sort of audio editing on it, but for $259, it would make a great mobile companion for the times I don't feel like lugging around my 6 pound laptop, power supply and other gear. For example, the Eee PC would be great for blogging from a coffee shop. It's got 802.11b/g and a 4 cell battery that should be good for about 3 hours.
Now I just have to see if my budget will let me buy a $600 professional audio recorder and a $259 laptop in the same month. Might be time to hit up eBay and sell some older equipment.
But a funny thing happened. I fell in love with a different recorder, the new Sony PCM-D50. The D50 is the follow-up to Sony's PCM-D1 recorder.
Like the PCM-D1, the D50 packs 4GB of internal flash memory, a Sony memory stick slot for expanded storage, high quality internal stereo condenser mics, and the ability to record 22.05 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz and 96 kHz, 16 and 24 bit WAV audio. But the D50 is about one third the price. While the D1 lists for $1995, the D50 will be available in November and has a list price of $599, which is the same as the Fostex FR2-LE. The street price could be even lower.
So what's the difference between the D1 and D50? The D1 has higher quality mics, old-fashioned analog VU meters, and a few more expensive components under the hood. The D50 has adjustable mics. You can change their position and the recorder will automatically adjust.
Here's a shot of the two recorders side by side:
What does the PCM-D50 have that the FR2-LE doesn't? On paper, not much. In fact, the D50 doesn't even have XLR inputs or offer phantom power for external condenser mics. But here's why I'm leaning toward picking one up in November:- It's compact, fits easily in the hand, and has excellent internal mics, making it great for grab and go recording. The FR2-LE has internal mics too, but they're the kind of mics you'd find on a third rate digital voice recorder. I think my PDA has a better mic.
- When I plugged a dynamic mic into the FR2-LE I had to crank up the gain all the way to get a decent record level. When I plugged the same mic into the PCM-D50, I had to turn the record volume down to 3 or 4 to keep from clipping. This little puppy has some powerful preamps.
- The PCM-D50 automatically detects when you've got an external mic plugged in and switches between the internal and external mic.
- I haven't found a single external mic that sounds good with the H4. The preamps are way too noisy.
- When using the excellent internal mics on the H4, the unit is susceptible to handling noise. I detected almost no handling noise when using the PCM-D50.
- In order to save your track or create a new file on the H4, you have to stop your recording and start a new one, which causes a you to lose a few seconds of audio. The PCM-D50 lets you create new tracks on the fly.
- The PCM-D50 controls are super easy to use, and you can change record levels on the fly with a simple jog dial. On the H4, you have to go through a bunch of software menus which will result in handling noise if you're using the internal mics.
- The H4 has a cheap plastic feel, the PCM-D50 has a sturdy metal feel.
Here are a few more specs:- Runs on 4 AA batteries
- Estimated battery life: 16 hours with headphones, 20 hours without
- Weights 12.88 ounces (including batteries)
- Supports MP3 playback, but does not record to MP3
- Four separate circuit boards to separate analog audio, digital audio, digital recording, and power supply circuits
- Transfer recordings to your computer using USB 2.0
- High pass filter
- 5-second pre buffer when using record pause mode
I'll post the audio tomorrow. Since these recordings were made in a noisy environment, I don't have an answer to my biggest question: which device would sound best in a quiet interview environment. But I'm pretty sure the Fostex FR2-LE doesn't sound enough better than my H4 to justify the price.
Update: Now you can listen to some sample recordings I made in the less than ideal setting of the AES show room floor.
Update 2: It looks like this digital audio recorder is getting a street price of $499.
Update 3: Sony has started shipping the PCM-D50, and I should be getting mine in early December, so expect a comprehensive review soon.
Update 4: It's here!
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