In my previous post, I had quite a few complaints
about the FR-2LE. But I finally received the 1/8"
stereo to dual XLR male adapter from The Sound
Professionals. This allowed me to use my Telinga
PRO-5W Stereo-DAT parabolic microphone with it,
which is why I bought the FR-2LE in the first
place! Most of my criticisms are rather moot now
=97 I'm very pleased with the FR-2LE.
With the FR-2LE slung to my left side, its strap
on the right side of my neck and my left shoulder
and arm threaded through, I was also able to also
carry my binoculars and video camera with no
trouble. So to my relief, the unit's size is not a problem.
The SP-XLRM-MINI-2 adapter is well made; the
PRO-5W's 1/8" plug snaps very firmly into it, and
the XLR plugs fit nicely into the FR-2LE;
although left and right aren't labeled, it's easy
to figure out which is which from the orientation of the plugs.
The FR-2LE's dynamic range is phenomenal. Of
course, I was used to using my HDR-HC1 video
camera as a sound recorder, and the difference is like night and day.
I didn't immediately realize that "mic trim"
should be turned all the way down, and main
volume all the way up. I had set mic trim to the
highest position at first; I experienced "hard
clipping", where the input cannot reach 0 dB and
is clipped before it gets there. It turns out
that with "mic trim" all the way up, any
main-volume setting below about 4.25 will result
in hard clipping. So, the best strategy is first
to turn mic trim all the way down and use the
main volume control; if the highest setting is
not enough, then mic trim can be called in. I
think that even without the hard clipping, mic
trim introduces a bit more noise at the same
effective volume, but I haven't tested this objectively yet.
The combination of main volume at highest and mic
trim at lowest seems to be absolutely perfect for
the Telinga! I don't think anything I record will
be loud and near enough to cause clipping, and
yet the noise floor is so low that I think I'll
be hard-pressed to find a setting so quiet that
the preamp hiss will be evident. I measured the
dynamic range at this volume setting to be 92.7
dB; I did this by recording with the Telinga
handle turned off, and measuring the
equal-loudness-contoured RMS of that recording.
Recording at 16 bit quite significantly quantizes
the -92.7 dB noise =97 at 16 bit precision, the
standard deviation of this noise is 0.76 ADUs. So
24 bit recording really is warranted. 20 bits
would do just fine, but that's not a standard
format (it'd save space, but would create compatibility issues).
Using the same method, I measured my HDR-HC1 to
have only 64.5 dB of dynamic range. Using it as
an audio recorder, I routinely ran into
situations where to avoid clipping, I had to drop
the background ambience into the hiss of the
noise floor. Worse =97 with the Telinga's high
output level, the HDR-HC1 experienced hard
clipping. Above a certain loudness, turning down
the mic volume would simply make the signal clip
at -6 dB for example. At the time I thought it
was a flaw in the Telinga PRO-5W, preventing me
from getting too close to a loudly singing bird.
How wrong I was! (Of course, an external volume
control would have solved the problem of the clipping, but not of the noise=
.)
The FR-2LE is a joy to use in the field. The
pre-rec buffer really works; deletion really
isn't all that necessary when you don't have to
record silence in the first place. The 5 second
power-up time is much better than my video
camera, and with the FR-2LE's long battery life I
didn't have to turn it off much anyway. With my
finger on the remote, I didn't miss anything
during a bird-recording walk yesterday. (I
actually can tell the difference between the red
and yellow on the remote's color-coded LED, even
though I have a protanomalous color deficiency.)
I never have to adjust the recording volume; the
unit's tremendous dynamic range can handle the
quiets and the louds all at one volume.
Postprocessing is just fine for adjusting it later.
The fact that there are two monitoring outputs
(one 1/8" stereo and one dual RCA) will be
convenient for when I want to record video that
can be dubbed later; the audio to be dubbed will
match up with the video's audio track, and also
the raw video will be nicer to watch. I do wish
that the FR-2LE's monitoring volume control did
not affect the RCA outs though; when I adjust it
for listening, the volume change will affect what
I'm recording on the video camera.
Some remaining/new complaints:
* I really wish that the monitoring volume knob
was larger and different from the "mic trim"
knobs. It's the same size, so finding it by touch
while I'm recording takes some care (I found
myself accidentally adjusting the mic trim during
a recording a couple times). Maybe I'll be able
to find a large knob I can tack onto it.
* I'm still quite unhappy with the fact that the
FR-2LE cannot record multiple formats to the same card.
* The "B12h23m46s24apr2007.wav" file naming
system is stupid; it doesn't properly sort
alphanumerically. There should be an option to
make it "2007-04-24_12-23-46.wav" or something
like that. However, it'll be easy enough for me
to write a program to automatically rename the files.
* I need to be able to switch between external
input and the internal microphone with a single
button press. Without this ability, I must resort
to dictating field notes into the parabolic microphone, which is rather sil=
ly.
Other than that, I really have no significant
complaints that affect my own use. I think I'll
be posting some recordings soon.
David Ellsworth
Software engineer / Photographer / Nature recordist / Birder
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