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Re: Future recording, part deux: Orban Sountainer

Subject: Re: Future recording, part deux: Orban Sountainer
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 21:00:19 -0500
Aaron Ximm wrote:
> 
> > No bigger than a flip-top cell phone and weighing only 5 ounces, this
> > diminutive product is designed for field recording.  The Sountainer
> > captures near-CD-quality stereo sound (128-Kbps data rate sampled at
> > 44.1 kHz) to solid state multimedia cards (MMC).  A single 256MB
> > memory card can hold up to 4.5 hours of mono MP3 recorded at this
> > data rate.  Upload recordings to PC or Mac via USB.  No indication of
> 
> MD is arguably a better solution to this -- ever so slightly bigger, but
> you can carry many times the media at a fraction of the cost.  And record
> at higher quality...
> 
> The trick of course is that you can't upload to a PC via USB from MD --
> yet. :(

You can, you just have to pay for it. HHb Portadisc will do it directly,
or you can input from any analog or digital source via things like
Roland's UA-30, which inputs everything via USB.

As has been pointed out numerous times, these are untried, of unknown
life expectancy, and unknown sound quality. I'm waiting to see who's
going to go out and record a Ivory Billed Woodpecker with one. I'll be
happy to have others take the grief, I'm not going to do it.

All these new toys are set up for line input, I think it's rare to find
quiet mic pre's. And things like prerecord buffers. Then there's phantom
power. We are talking a field recorder, not a computer accessory.

The point is these are consumer electronics designed in one way or
another around mp3 stuff, or that craze. The bottom line in that craze
is that sound quality is unimportant, only the amount you can pack in
and how fast you can do it count. They are designed with that in mind.
They are glorified computer attachments. They may provide a slightly
more convenient connection to the computer, but that's not where you do
nature recording. The actual transfer of the recordings is a trivial
part of the job. For instance, 7 months of recording last year yielded
me 9 audio CD's worth. Transfer all that in a day, which happens to be
just how long it took me. You don't want to even think how long it took
me to record all that, even if you don't count all the travel time to
get there. I was not even tending it constantly when transferring.

And tiny is actually a big disadvantage beyond a certain point. Give me
a properly sized recorder with all the pro features for the recording. I
have no quibbles with how long it might take to transfer it to computer.
That's pure unimportant trivia. What's important in MD itself for me is
the rock solid reliability, media that's durable and well protected, and
cheap. What's important in a field recorder is everything that occurs
before the signal reaches the record medium.

It's interesting having 128-Kbs promoted as better than MD. Clearly
sound compression is only a problem if it's MD.

Walt



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