Iriver and corresponding mic

[Jeff Farrell]

Kinda lost with all the different Irivers out there. Can anyone recommend or share their setup? What model Iriver do you have and what mic do you use with it?

How do you find the sound quality?

Thanks a lot!
Jeff

[Matthew Kent]

I'm wondering about the same thing... did you ever get one?

[Bob Costa]

Try doing a search here on iRiver. This has all been discussed to death. A lot of it is in the Wedding forum.

[Jeff Farrell]

I got the 799 Iriver (1 gb) at Circuit City. The price at the store is $199, but they have a web special that saved $50 so I ordered it online and picked it up at the store.

I ordered a Giant Squid Iriver mic (they make them specifically for Irivers) with a right angle plug (the GS website said they were out of right angle plugs, but he got some in). $25

Will let you know how it works soon.

[Matthew Kent]

Cool, I just ordered two 790's off of Ebay for $110 (for both). I figured since the GS mics will be recording mono, I'll be able to work with 256mb recorders no problem... I'll post some samples once I get them.

[Brian Kennedy]

That Giant Squid lav looked interesting (and the price is terrific), so I ordered one, too! It will be nice to have an inexpensive lav setup.

[Matthew Kent]

Got my mics today. They sound awesome on through my imic... can't wait to get my iRivers.

I did notice though that the mics were a little hot on my camcorder, not that I'd be plugging them into my camcorder, but it was a little worrysome. I suppose if it becomes a problem, I could purchase one of the beachtek adapters.

Do the irivers allow to adjust input tolerance?

[Brandon Wood]

yes, you can adjust the input volume

[Francois Poitras]

I bought an iRiver IFP790 yesterday and, after noticing some hiss while I was test recording, I made some comparisons this morning with my different mics to see the difference in quality between the iRiver and my Panasonic GS400 when recording voice.

What I did is basically plug one Giant Squid omni mic in the iRiver and another identical plugged in the GS400 and record my voice simultaneously on both (the GS mics are both powered). I did the exact same thing with an AT822 by plugging one channel in the iRiver and the other in the GS400. Of course, I tried to adjust the gain so both channels were relatively close in level. The iRiver was configured for optimal recording (44.1 kHz, 320 kbps) and volume was set at 50 (the minimum to get a reasonable level IMO).

I found that the iRiver does indeed introduce some hiss and this makes it difficult to compare the actual sound quality. After removing the selfnoise in post, it sounded better, but still not as clean and detailed as the recordings made on the GS400.

Still, I find that the iRiver is impressive for such a small device.

[Matthew Kent]

Hmm... that's a little dissapointing, although others have pointed out that it's not a perfect solution. Does anyone know if other models of iriver suffer from this?

I've unfortunately already ordered my 790's

[Francois Poitras]

I think a few people reported hearing self-noise with some 800 models. I have not tried other models, but my guess is that the self-noise is standard. Some people have a problem with the hiss, some don’t (and that’s OK).

[Francois Poitras]

I should add that the noise seems to be much less obvious with the (powered) Giant Squid mic than with the AT822, which is not as sensitive.

[Bill Binder]

I'm curious as to whether the hiss is still there or is minimized by recording using line-level input as opposed to mic-level input. My understanding is the iRiver can be set to use either input level simply by tweaking a setting. Now, the trick of course is to get your mic-level mic stepped-up to line-level. Not sure, but if you have a minijack-based mic, you might be able to use one of those Giant Squid 9v battery boxes to do this. I wonder if the sound would be any better?

[Francois Poitras]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I returned the iRiver and settled for a Sony RH-910 HiMD. I must say I’m quite happy with it, especially that Sony just released SonicStage 3.2, which allows for unlimited digital transfers of live recordings.

Regards,

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Francois Poitras

Thanks for the suggestion, but I returned the iRiver and settled for a Sony RH-910 HiMD. I must say I’m quite happy with it, especially that Sony just released SonicStage 3.2, which allows for unlimited digital transfers of live recordings.

Regards,

YEAH! Hadn't heard this. Might put minidisc back on my "maybe" list as the one-only-allowed digital transfer was a deal-breaker for me. I've been around computers for too long to ever trust anything that was a only-one-chance-to-get-it-right.