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Re: comparing 20 portable digital recorders

Subject: Re: comparing 20 portable digital recorders
From: "oryoki2000" oryoki2000
Date: Mon Nov 9, 2009 5:30 am ((PST))
Robin,

Thanks for this well-written, non-technical presentation.  

Here are four suggestions to make a good article more useful.

First, be sure to explain the tech jargon.  Terms like SPL and phantom power 
will be unfamiliar to a reader who is new to audio recording.  

Second, since you point to EIN as an important criterion, it should be 
explained more fully.  At least tell people how to interpret the EIN values in 
the table.  I'm thinking of statements like, "EIN higher than -100 means 
pre-amp noise easily will be heard in your recordings."  

If this seems to complicated for your audience, then I would not present the 
actual EIN numbers, and substitute a rating of preamp noise, such as "high, 
moderate, low, very low."

Speaking of EIN, I would provide greater credit to Raimund Specht for his work 
that provides insight into the EIN of portable recorders.  Perhaps you could 
include a footnote, as well as a hyperlink to his web page.

Third, you describe several criteria you think are important in the process of 
choosing a recorder.  But then you don't provide any notes about how well the 
20 recorders in your list meet most of those criteria.   

For example, you write (and I certainly agree) that ease of use in the field is 
important.  You could add a column to the table that rates ease of use using a 
scale of 1 to 4 (1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = excellent).

Fourth, your table includes lots of information about recorder size, but the 
article text doesn't mention size as an important criterion.  You could leave 
out all the dimensional data, and just keep the three categories, 
"pocket-size," "hand-held," and "shoulder."  That would make room for ratings 
on the criteria you do say are important, such as ease of use, speed of boot 
up, pre-roll buffer, battery life, build quality and so on.

--oryoki








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