I've noticed that Tascam have a knack for making their in-built mics sound
musically good, IF you can live with the noise problem. That is, I wouldn't
recommend any of the hand held Tascams to a budding nature recordists who
want's to use it just as it comes, but, for use with higher sound levels in
music recording Tascam have got something right that the others have yet to
achieve.
I've sampled my way through quite a lot of recorders and occasionally I find a
"keeper". The tascam DR-2d doesn't look much but is a cracking little device
for anything musical where you are dealing with sound by the pound instead of
sound by the ounce ;) The inputs handle hotter signals than usual too, it's
obvious, after a bit of a dabble that they are making their recorders for
people in the music world. Even the way they default things like the through
monitoring from the mic and line inputs and the ability to record a second file
at a lower level all lean heavily towards musical applications.
Apart from the DR100 mk2 ( probably for it's digital input ), you won't hear
much praise for Tascam hand-held stuff on this list because they are
comparatively noisy. If you are in a situation where you are more worried about
handling high levels than you are about the noise floor, they take the lead,
even away from Zoom, in my opinion.
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