I'll admit there is no money in the coffers to make the purchase, so this i=
s not an urgent question, but it's been bouncing around in my head for a wh=
ile so I thought I pose it here.
I have an Olympus LS-10, and for the stuff I normally do (kids, family stuf=
f, my attempts at music) it works fine - I'm grateful for the simplicity. B=
ut when I think about getting into more serious nature recordings I know th=
at means lower noise, which means better mics, which means xlr inputs and p=
hantom power. In that scenario complex cabling/power/etc. is expected and n=
ot a big deal. I have a Behringer 802 mixer, so I already have the means to=
connect the mics to the LS-10 (or my Presonus audio interface & laptop for=
that matter) for making backyard recordings. What remains is the mics, whi=
ch are a different issue altogether.
But, assuming mics were in hand, and I had another $500-700ish to spend on =
a more portable solution, is the choice between getting a Mixpre, to use wi=
th the line-in on the LS-10, and a new recorder for about the same money (F=
R2-LE, PMD661?) an obvious one?
Seems like the Mixpre has some neat features, obviously high quality, and t=
he nearly irresistible SD cool factor. The FR2-LE/other recorder has a bit =
more simplicity and redundancy (assuming I have a line out to the LS-10 as =
a backup) although the latter impacts the former.
While I've been lurking here for a while and have learned a lot, I'm still =
a bit confounded by the process of comparing input noise & sensitivity leve=
ls - is there a clear sonic winner from a specs perspective?
My intuition is that the FR2-LE would probably be quieter overall - it seem=
s very well regarded with respect to noise, and adding a mixer in front of =
a noisier recorder seems unlikely to improve things, but maybe the mixpre =
could add enough clean gain to be advantageous?
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