Bad Sports: Accidentally ahead of the curve!
Some Hot Recorders for Those Cool Podcasts (Larry Magid, NY Times)
There are basically three types of digital flash recorders on the market. There are digital voice recorders like the Olympus VN-3100PC ($69) that are mostly used for dictation and other voice-recording tasks. Also, some digital music players, like the iRiver T30 ($40 for the 512-megabyte model), have recording abilities, and there are accessories for the iPod like the TuneTalk Stereo for iPod ($69) from Belkin.
While those can be used for podcasts, the sound quality and versatility will not be as good as the higher-end dedicated systems like the Marantz PMD 660 ($499), the Edirol by Roland R-09 ($399) and the M-Audio MicroTrack 24/96 ($350).
I tested each of the three recorders and found the sound quality more than adequate for podcasts and professional voice broadcasting like the radio reports I do. I also used them to record music, which sounded very good to my ears, though audiophiles often debate the nuances of sound quality. All are able to record as either uncompressed WAV files or compressed MP3 audio.
Ethan and I are SO cool (I guess), since we've been using the little M-Audio device for podcast recording since we started the thing. I actually purchased it for recording live music, but it's well suited for the podcast, and I record more podcasts than live music these days (really can't stand the smoke at live country music dives any more *cough* *cough*).
Anyway, the little M-Audio device can be found for considerably less than list price if you search around a bit. I'll warn that for very loud live music, it's not perfect out of the box. You'll want a battery box and (depending on your mics) an adaptor that allows you to plug your mics into its phono input (because the plug-in-power mic jacks don't handle loud sounds well, and the plug-in-power gets "dirty" at high levels ).
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/22/06 09:00 | Tech | Technorati
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