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Re: Marantz PMD-660 and competitors

Subject: Re: Marantz PMD-660 and competitors
From: Mike Feldman <>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:49:45 -0600
I'm Cc:ing the micbuilders list -- apologies to those of you
who suffer this twice.

artistico7 wrote:

> I've still got an R-1 on order that it is still possible for me to 
> cancel, although it might be quite possible that it will be more 
> convenient for my use than the new Marantz.

Convenience is a factor, and the R-1 has some hope if Edirol will
actually upgrade the firmware.  Big annoyance for me is that there's
no manual track splitting, so I tried the auto splitting, and there's
no threshold-level adjustment.  I'm not certain, but it also seemed
to stop recording when below the fixed level for more than a few
seconds... anyway it did seem to startup and catch my first words
without delay... maybe it has a bit of pre-roll buffer in that mode?

> I understand that the problem with the internal mics is that it 
> doesn't take high sound pressure levels, but hence it should be 
> alright for acoustic work, and even for ambience recordings ...
> Any thoughts on the sound quality when the mic is not pushed to  its
> limitations?

I noticed my Edmund Scientific 24" aluminum parabola, so I took it
and the R-1 outside for a bit of urban nature recording.  I've spliced
3 separate passages (actually with 2 files (one auto-split) each
in the 1st twopassages, and 3 splits in the last.  The only editing
I did was the seemless splices, fades between passages, and the Lame
conversion to 192 kbps mp3 format.  It and a photo are at:

http://feldman.gidnoy.com/audio/20041227_EdirolR1_w_dish.mp3
http://feldman.gidnoy.com/photos/EdirolR1_and_al_dish.jpg

The first passage is just a spoken introduction, since the crowd
of sparrows (or wrens, or whatever) that hang around waiting for
my wife to fill the feeders.  Of course, they were quiet for the
1st part.  The 2nd part is an airplane passing about 20 degrees
above the horizon.  3rd part is me walking around the bush to get
the sparrows riled up.

For the use with the dish, I was holding the dish with one (gloved!)
hand and the R-1 with the other, and I tried to keep the mics centered
at the focus.  I'm not sure I want to put the effort into a custom
clamp to hold the dish and recorder ... think external mics would
be a better project, and R-1 can stay in pocket or pouch.

> Would also be interesting to know how it performs compared to the 
> present consumer MiniDisc recorders as they are comparable in size.

Sorry, only MD I have is a pro rackmount deck.  Did most of my
portable recording with Sony D-8 DAT, until it got flakey.

> Anyway, with that kind of mic response, 24-bit recording might have 
> been an unnecessary feature?

We'll see when I set up the external mics/preamp and do some studio
music tests.  I still fear that the limiting factor will prove to be
the analog frontend to the A/D.

> ... and USB out does really make digital 
> out redundant for the common second step of digital recordings that 
> go into the computer in any case whether it be via the USB out or a 
> computer-connected card reader.

Well, digital out would allow taper's daisy-chains, but it's not
clear if I'd want the R-1 to be the A/D if there were an M-1, D-8,
or other last-gen box to be at the head of the chain.  And digital
out might be nice when there's no computer nearby.  But I'd rather
have given up some of the fluff features for both in and out.  And
maybe I'd prefer digital in to digital out ... could use external
preamp/A-D as frontend for field.

-- Mike


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