Hi Jon
You can't beat the price of the audiomoth, or the portability. But you can =
beat the audio if you have the budget. The openacousticdevices website comp=
ares the audiomoth to the Wildlife Acoustics SM2 (a discontinued but widely=
familiar model of the Song Meter) and states that the SNR of the audiomoth=
is about 5 dB lower than the SM2. And the SM2 is not a quiet recorder.
I have extensively used the SM4, which costs a lot more than an audiomoth b=
ut has very good audio quality. It uses EM172 mic capsules (probably becaus=
e of all of the talk about them on this group I am guessing) and it is very=
robust in terms of weatherproofing. I can't compare the SM4 directly to th=
e audiomoth, but I have compared it to the SM3, and the SNR of the SM4 is a=
bout 10 dB better than the SM3, which in turn is supposed to be about 6 dB =
better than the SM2. I can't vouch for this, but the self noise of the audi=
omoth may be around 21 dB louder than the SM4.
The SM4 could be even better if it had slightly quieter preamps. Compared t=
o my LS-11 connected to external EM172 capsules in a PBBA, the SM4 is a lit=
tle noisier, about 1dB. The SM4 is indistinguishable from the EM172 array g=
oing into an LS-7, which has slightly noisier preamps than the LS-11
I am considering audiomoths for deployment of multiple units in an area, wh=
ere audio quality is not an issue, but I would not expect a US$79 recorder =
to deliver the same audio quality as a US$850 recorder.
Just my sense of the situation, without having actually used an audiomoth. =
Cornell Ornithology also makes a recorder called the Swift. But I have not =
been able to figure out where it sits in terms of audio quality. It costs m=
ore than an audiomoth but a lot less than an SM4.
John Crockett
"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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