An audiophile at O'Reilly reviews the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 field recorder. A couple of months back, I switched from my trusty Sharp DR-7 minidisc recorder to the just-released M-Audio MicroTrack. I've been pretty happy with the quality so far. Flash memory's relatively cheap, it has 1/8" mic input, 1/4" TRS mic input, phantom power, S/PDIF out, records mp3 or wav at various resolutions, and USB connection, among other features. And it's small, slightly larger than a deck of cards. I use it primarily for field recording of interviews and band practices. I bought mine from Sound Professionals for around $400 (Amazon's now apparently selling it for around the same price--if you read the Amazon consumer reviews, you should know that you can't set the recording levels unless the device is actively recording; this explains complaints about overdriven signals in some of the comments). (You'll definitely need an upgraded CF card, though, since it only comes with a 64 meg card.)
I pre-ordered mine before they were officially released, based primarily on the feature set. I was glad to see that the O'Reilly reviewer gave it a thumbs-up. (I still feel the sting of purchasing the [now infamous] Apple 5300c when it came out--I sent it back ten times in the first year for warranty repairs.) The O'Reilly review mentions some key shortcomings, including problems with the phantom power mic input that could potentially fry your mic, your recorder, or both, if you're not aware of the potential problem. It's not a high-end field recorder (which run $1k and beyond), but it seems to be the best product in the under-$1k range.
[via Gizmodo]
Posted by johndanseven at December 8, 2005 10:15 PM