roglet ivan wrote:
> I was thinking to buy the HHB portadisc or the Marantz PMD 650.
>
> In a review about the HHB portadisc,the author of the review wrote the fo=
llowing:
>
> "Judging by the Portadisc's sturdy XLR inputs and HHB's professional pedi=
gree, I expected good performance from the Portadisc's mic preamps. To my s=
urprise, the analog electronics were the Portadisc's weakest link.
>
> Some of my field-recording work involves capturing quiet sounds from natu=
re, often recorded from a distance. For premium results, that requires a qu=
iet (not to mention accurate) mic preamp. Though the Portadisc's mic preamp=
s were acceptable for recording close-miked dialog or amplified music, they=
are noticeably noisy when recording quiet sources.
>
> Even more annoying than the noise level from the preamps is a subtle whin=
e that appears in recordings when the deck's phantom power is engaged. Afte=
r I discovered that problem on the original review unit, HHB kindly sent an=
other deck for me to test. The second machine was something of an improveme=
nt, but it did not entirely resolve the discouraging problem.
>
> So, I was quite surprised when I read that some of you used this machine.
>
> What do you think about this problem?
>
> Was it an early generation issue? Did they fix this problem ?
I have one of the earliest generation Portadiscs. It has no such
problem, has never exhibited such a problem etc. etc. I can find no such
thing even by sonogram.
And I record with MKH mics in quiet places. The preamps in the Portadisc
are very good.
I believe the reviewer got a couple portadiscs with problems. It is not
the norm. In fact far from it. Were I to get such a problem in a new
portadisc, it would go back to HHb. They, I'm quite sure, don't consider
it the norm.
Like all portable recorders, the pre's in the portadisc are a
compromise. They are not as good as a sound devices MP2, but close.
Considering that a MP2, which is just a pre, lists for half the price of
the Portadisc, that's pretty good. I've seen some comments from those
familiar with the PortaDat that HHb used to make that seem to indicate
that the pre's on the Portadisc are a improvement over that previous HHb
portable.
> Do you use separate mic preamps then?
I have a sound devices MP2, bought to be able to decode MS stereo in the
field. I have used it with the Portadisc. But, either to decode MS
stereo or to get a little more gain than is possible with the Portadisc
alone. I don't need to use it to avoid pre noise. Even if using mics
like the MKH-20, MKH-80, or MKH-60 all of which I use and have a self
noise of 10dBA or less.
> Using the K6, the mic preamps are one of my main concern.
>
> The phantom power is not a problem(with the K6) but if I give an update t=
o
>
> my mics too, it will become one.
As I noted I'm using MKH mics, and the phantom power from the Portadisc
to power them. I did, right after getting my portadisc, do a bunch of
testing of both phantom power and pre. Everything worked perfectly.
There were none of the problems reported in that review. Or any sign of
problems reported for phantom power on other brands.
I don't have any of the ME series mics, so don't have any experience
using them with my portadisc.
> What about the marantz PMD650 mic preamps then?
>
> If someone is using one...
It is a older design, but should be ok. The ATRAC in it is 4.0 vs 4.5
for the Portadisc.
I personally think the Portadisc is better, which is why I bought it
instead of the Marantz.
>
> And I do have a stupid question ;o)
>
> Using the PMD 430,one of the nice thing was the off tape recording possib=
ility,
>
> allowing me to listen to what I was recording (because of the 3rd head).
>
> Is it possible with the MD recorder then?
>
> I didn't find the answer yet...
It is not at all the same as a tape recorder. You had that 3rd head on
the tape recorder because tape was unreliable, and much of that
associated with the transport and heads, so the only way to hope to
catch it was by monitoring what actually got on the tape. There were
errors even that would not catch. This is all part of why most of us
switched from magnetic tape, to get away from all that.
Digital is quite different. It is far more reliable. At least MD is, DAT
gains some reliability, but still is using tape, so can have problems
similar to your tape recorder, and some DAT do still have the extra
head. MD is using a optical disk written by a laser. The recording
surface is not contacted. In some 6 years of recording in the field with
MD I've never had it fail to get the recording of whatever my mics were
picking up.
It's probably possible to read and write at the same time with MD, as
the writing can occur faster than realtime. So, you could have the laser
switching back and forth in power levels, buffering the sound on both
sides to get a audio read from the disk while recording. You would then
have to have the ATRAC chip switching back and forth between encode and
decode as well. In theory it could be done, but there is no reason to
introduce all that complexity. It would use more battery power, and more
wear on the head mechanism. You would also have to deal with the fact
that MD is not linear like tape, but random access. It can be writing
what seems like a continuous recording on bits of space here and there
in the disk if the disk has been edited and fragmented.
Most MD give you the audio output of the preamp, just before it's
digitized. The headphone output of a MD does monitor what's being
recorded. You have all that you need for setting preamp and so on, which
is the main place you will find you make errors. What you hear will be
exactly the same as what you will hear when playing the sound back later.
In analog recording, having the gain too high results in clipping, but
the sound of that clipping is not that big a deal. In digital clipping
is a very big deal, and will sound awful. So, you will have to learn new
habits, will probably mess up some recordings until you get the hang of
setting the gain low enough to insure no clipping at all. I typically
record with my portadisc reading peaks at about -10dB to have a pad. If
the sounds I'm recording are sharply varying, like cricket frogs or such
like, I may be running a setting of -20dB or even more.
Digital, particularly with MD, has a very wide dynamic range compared to
tape. With tape you always were setting your gain high and tolerating
some clipping to maximize use of it's more limited dynamic range. With
MD you have over 90dB of dynamic range to play with so don't have to
crowd the top of the meter.
Anyway, don't worry about 3rd heads and such like. That's a world you
are leaving.
Walt
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|