Zoom H4 produces a 640 Hz tone which cannot be removed. It's the
voltage converter, but the tone is still there, even if you feed it
with a external 7,2 volt supply. In one of the Zoom discussion
groups, a user had been able to bring this tone down to "-42 db" (by
adding 3 high capacitance condensors over the voltage rail) - but
that is not low enough for nature recordings.
I was very disappointed, as it was cheap and had a "good enough" mic input.
Klas.
At 15:35 2007-06-03, you wrote:
>Dear All
>
>I hope I'm not asking too-stupid questions here. I would appreciate
>any answers or hints on where to find the info I'm after.
>
>I am in the market for a relatively inexpensive, portable recorder
>that can record in some sort of uncompressed format (e.g. AIFF). The
>primary use for the recorder will be for ambient sound and
>interviews for radio pieces, but I also will use it for recording
>bird and frog calls that I may want to analyse using Raven or
>similar programmes (hence the need for an uncompressed format - I am
>an environmental journalist with a serious academic interest in
>biology and have just started becoming interested in sound). My
>primary mic is a Sennhieser ME 66 with K6 power module (already bought).
>
>It's important to me that the recorder be compact, light, reliable,
>and that the manual recording level can be easily adjusted while recording.
>
>I have excluded the Marantz flash recorders from consideration
>because they are too big and heavy. After looking around a lot I
>have whittled my list down to 2 options:
>
>1) Sony MZ RH1 MiniDisc recorder
>
>2) Zoom H4 Handy Recorder (or possibly Zoom H2)
>
>I'm leaning towards the MiniDisc for 3 reasons: 1, the recording
>level seems more easily adjustable on the fly, and 2 that MiniDiscs
>are far cheaper than flash memory cards (I will sometimes need to
>carry at least 5GB of storage far away from my computer for the type
>of things I do, and I'm not rolling in cash right now), and 3 that
>the MiniDisc unit is smaller than the Zoom.
>
>Also, I've read that the Zoom has an irritating and incurable
>low-level clicking sound on quiet tracks made using battery power (I
>will not be using the unit tethered to a wall plug).
>
>However (and this is where I really need some of your experience and
>insight), the MiniDisc does not have balanced XLR inputs.
>
>How much of a problem is this, as I will virtually never be using a
>mic cable of longer than 1.5m? Not being much of an audio
>technician, I gather that the chief advantage of a balanced line is
>that interference is minimised over long distance. Does 1.5m count
>as 'long distance'? I also have heard that the preamps of the
>MiniDisc deliver far cleaner sound than many other small recorders.
>
>I also had the occasional problem of equipment noise with my
>previous MiniDisc recorder (MZ R909) - sometimes the whirring of the
>unit interfered with recordings, ad I'm not sure how noisy the RH1
>is. The 909 also died of mysterious causes, even though I handled it carefully.
>
>Any advice will be gratefully received - pros and cons of the
>equipment I've identified, as well as alternatives that I might not know about.
>
>Regards
>
>Adam Welz
>
>Cape Town, South Africa
>
>
>
>
>
>___________________________________________________________
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>
>
>"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
>sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
Telinga Microphones, Botarbo,
S-748 96 Tobo, Sweden.
Phone & fax int + 295 310 01
email:
website: www.telinga.com
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