I've just received a Nagra ARES-M, Nagra's smallest, lowest-cost
recorder and the first Swiss/Chinese collaboration for them. See:
http://www.nagraaudio.com/pro/
Right off it's just the right size and has all the features nature
recordists need, including quiet PIP preamps (critical tests to
follow).
It has a serious defect in the mounting of the 3.5mm jacks (mic, line
in, headphone, line out) a little below the surface of the case
(.75mm for the inputs, 1.2mm for the outputs) so that the plugs don't
insert far enough to lock securely. I think I'm going to have to
grind down the plastic around the jacks.
The human interface is fine but not very intuitive; the learning
curve is steep but short. There are very helpful things like
pre-record buffer (only 2 seconds max) and ten presets for mic types
and levels. Loading a preset includes a default gain setting for that
mic, and record gains can be locked, something that would be useful
for survey work.
The menu for the set-up of the presets is intentionally a bit hard to
get to; I think the idea is that an engineer sets it up and hands it
to a reporter who isn't that technical.
There's a bewildering array of choices of encoding schemes, all
16-bit max; PCM, MP2, MP3, and weird phone encodings like u-law.
Tested so far with its snap-on stereo mic (looks like M-S, Nagra USA
supplies it with the lower-noise Sennheiser capsules, not the stock
model), Shure WL-183s, and Telinga EM-23s. Sounds great with all of
them.
I'm really busy right now, so if Rob Danielson has time to do
comparisons before I do, I'll be happy to ship it out. Rob?
-Dan Dugan
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