Hi Jon,
I have used M-Audio Microtrack and Microtrack II's for years as digital bit
buckets to connect to the SPDIF output of my own designed, ultra low noise mic
preamp. The Microtrack II's allow for headphone monitoring. Microtracks would
probably be pretty hard to find now, and if you do find them, you will probably
need to change the battery inside them. The lowest cost digital input recorder
on the market now is the Tascam DR-100MKII, for around $200, which is a decent
recorder as well with a -120dB input noise. I used one for a while. If you
haven't already bought the MixPre-D, you might want to consider the Tascam
DR-680. The DR-680 is the lowest noise bang for your buck, has 6 channel input,
digital in/out, with a recorder, for about half the cost of a MixPre-D. It's a
battery hog, but most low noise devices are. The DR-680 has only 2-3dB more
input noise than a Sound Devices 700 series or the same input noise as the
MixPre-D. I haven't actually used a DR-680, so there might be issues with it
that I am not aware of. One thing about the MixPre-D is that the A/D converter
used is only rated at 103dB, which is not very good, so you might be better off
using the line output. The best preamps today should have 120dB A/D converters
or you really are just using 16 bit performance, which some will argue is all
anyone needs, but you miss an extra 20dB of dynamic range to be able to record
at lower levels to make sure you do not clip. I routinely record at -30dB
average with my set-up with a 120dB 24bit A/D conversion. That said, the DR-680
only has a 100 or so db A/D converter as well. Using a digital out to digital
input allows you to completely bypass input amps of normally noisy inexpensive
recorders. The next best thing is to use a line input with and a low noise
preamp.
Bruce Rutkoski
Owner
http://www.wildtronics.com http://www.wildtronics.com
Professional Parabolic Microphones
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause.
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