Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

The newly announced Zoom H6, I guess the big brother of the H4... supposedly has 6XLR/TRS inputs (4 onboard and 2 optional add-ons), and add-on mic capsules (X-Y, mid-side, and shotgun) and more. Pricing and availablily TBD

ZOOM

The Tascam DR-60D has no mics, 2 XLR/TRS inputs and an additional stereo mic input, the ability of dual recording and can be attached under a DSLR... Availablity soon at about $350.00US.

Product: DR-60D | TASCAM

I'd love to get my hands on both and see which can actually do what. The Zoom's ability to have 4(6) XLR inputs seems pretty cool! The DR-60D mounting options, great pre-amps seem good, too. What are y'alls thoughts?

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Juiced Link weighs in on the DR-60D vs. its Riggy Assist RA333: Blog : juicedLink, Unique and Trusted Solutions for Audio and Video Production

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Wow,
Juicelinked just produced the best ever commercial for Tascam. WTF?
Al

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

My thoughts too... except when they mounted the RA333 to the Zoom H4n to provide a additional 2-3 XLR inputs to the Zoom. Makes me want to rethink my options. Unless the H6 is in the same price and capability ballpark as the Tascam... I guess I'll have to wait and see until someone gets their hands on a production H^ and puts it through its paces.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Interesting. I like how they actually put up a tiny sound comparison, and the conclusion that was drawn was that the DR-60D had somewhat worse SNR. But he didn't talk about what was glaringly obvious -- the DR-60D sounded better! A lot better! (I'm listening on Sony MDR-7506 headphones, which are what I use in the field to make those dialog recordings -- if you're listening on tiny laptop speakers, you may not hear it, but for that matter you probably aren't hearing much of anything that way ;-)

I mean, come on. Anyone really think the built-in sound recording in any camera is going to sound better than a dedicated audio recorder? My bet is that even if you have an SD-302 feeding just about any DSLR, it's going to sound worse than a DR-60D. And that SD-302 costs 4.6 times as much!

We'll know more as more of these things make it out to the field. I'm sure some people will post some real sound comparisons soon. Then we'll see how this little puppy fares in the real world.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Bruce, I agree the, to my ears, DR-60D sounded better. I was listening on external monitors as well as a cheap house stereo system.
I like the Tascam's auto start/stop feature with an adjustable noise threshold, just one button to start and stop recording!

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

I have one of the juiced link products. Not high end but they put out good gear/value for the money. But they'd be far better off putting out a true competitor to the Tascam than putting this "review" out.

I will say though that my interest in the DR-60D diminished somewhat given the lack of a smooth adjustable gain complete with audible clicks for each adjustment. (see at about 2:30 of the juiced link video). If there's no way around this it is a poor choice in design.

On the plus side the tascam can record a back up at a somewhat lower gain setting which should minimize the need to adjust levels (and help prevent distortion) while recording but still not good enough imo.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Jase,
********I will say though that my interest in the DR-60D diminished somewhat given the lack of a smooth adjustable gain complete with audible clicks for each adjustment. (see at about 2:30 of the juiced link video). If there's no way around this it is a poor choice in design.
***************

While not a deal breaker I would hope a firmware upgrade would fix that. I realize it's a digital adjustment but it should still be smooth.
Most high end mixers are moving to onboard recording now. I think that's the way to go.

But it also goes without saying that Juicelinked makes good products.

I really think this video hurts them more then helps them though. It didn't make me like their product any less. But it did more to open my eyes to what's good about the Tascam. And I think that should have been Tascams job.
Al

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Jase, the audible click is heard during the constant tone at 2.41. And you're right, stepped gain pots suck, there's the possibility of audible clicking
during speech from the talent.

Many juicedLinks can be setup to dual record track 2 at a lower gain, to avoid over peaking.

Imo at $350 the DR60D will sell like hot cakes. But quite a few buyers will find it's too big and heavy, and they only use a few features.
Watch the reviews .. and eBay.

Cheers.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

I think Allan hit the nail on the head when he said it will probably sell like hot cakes. Having been in sales, including selling Teac (parent company of Tascam) reel to reel decks back in the olden days (as our daughter calls them), there will be many customers that get mesmerized by the bells and whistles of a unit and not look much further, and frankly, the DR-60 does look really glitzy.

However, the stepped pots are one thing that would leave me as a user spending much more effort trying to get the audio right without messing something up. It seems that any adjustments would need to be done during a quiet time but the bad part is when it becomes obvious that the gain needs to be adjusted it will be during a period with high sound levels.

Personally, I don't know how to reconcile this. I like to be able to tweak the gain on the fly and often the sound level is a moving target.

The other problem for me with the 60D is the shear size and weight for doing fly-cam work. I know this is a niche area but I use a Glidecam and the compact size and light weight of the JL is very handy. Having said that, being an equipment buff I'm certainly not above adding another piece of gear to my kit as there's a time and a place for everything.

Disclaimer: I'm a JuicedLink CX211 user (no bells and whistles) and I'm in the market for a recorder.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Yep John, in a practical sense, a solo shooter won't be screwing with these stepped pots, while he's actually shooting.
After he sets a sound level, his full attention will be with the camera.

That's why I think some shooters will only use a few functions, eg: one mic input, and get used to it. A problem with that is, when they have to use a second or third mic input, and it could happen suddenly on location so without that experience, trouble! Using 3 mics with this unit fitted under the camera is not practical, the cables alone will be a pain.

And it'll be a pain for any sound guy who can't make any level changes during a take.

Hard to believe Tascam didn't take this into account. I think now we'll just have to wait for ALL the reviews, some are out now.
One says 'Notably, the gain adjustments are made via smooth dials on the rear of the unit.'

Cheers.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

I don't this is going to be the greatest solution for a solo shooter unless you're on sticks. It would be great to use with a audio person off camera. I like the fact that it records.

But it appears to have flimsy mounting options as noted on B&H customer reviews. This could be a deal breaker.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/929347-REG/tascam_dr_60d_4_ch_track_linear_pcm.html
AL

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

While I agree 16bit is usually sufficient for dialogue, I don't always just record dialogue. 24/96 edits better and in my opinion, sounds better. Having the ability to record with the Tascam also means you don't have to use the analogue to digital converters in your camera. I like Juicedlink products but it's surprising they would put that video on their website. It does make the Tascam look like the one to go with.
.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Wow,
Zoom doesn't seem to be taking this laying down.


AL

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

B&H posted a price of $399.99 for the Zoom H6, but no info or availability is shown. Would love to see how the H6 preamps compare to the H4n

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/967366-REG/Zoom_H6_HANDY_AUDIO_RECORDER.html

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Bob,
I 'd actually like to know how the preamps stack up to my Tascam DR 100 MKII.

Hey I see you are in Abita Springs. I'm in Slidell.
AL

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Yeah, you right! (Slidell is soooo far away. At least I'm near the Abita brewery!)

If the preamps of the H6 are better than the DR-60D, then I may go that route. I find I'm using more than 2 XLR inputs more often than not... The DR-60D, while nice, would require either a some sort of kludge to get a third XLR mic setup or I'd have to use a mic with a 3.5mm plug.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd like to see a side by side by side comparison of the H4n, H6, DR-60D, and even the DR-100 and let the chips fall where they may.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Actually you would only have to use a xlr to mini adapter cable to get a 3rd mic into the DR-60D.

Bob, what camera do you shoot with? My main is a Sony EX1R. I have Canon 60D that I use sometimes.


As far as the brewery i can just walk there on the Trace. LOL

Al

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Not sure if any of you bump into Pat Floury down in A.S. but say hi if you do know him. Seem to have lost his email.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Al, I don't think that the mounting unit is much worse than the one that I have on my SD Mixpre-D and slinging a Marantz 661. I can hand hold the Mixpre, it actually gives me a solid brick in my hand to hold. I agree that the Tascam is probably too big to handhold, especially if you have a Zacuto finder attached. But do we really need to handhold it? I mount to a monopod when not needing a true tripod, never handhold if I can help it. I do feel that it's a bit of stretch for the one man band crowd, but I'm seriously thinking of getting it just to see whether it gets me off my SD unit or not. I'm having good luck going directly into my 5D with the SD unit. My sound quality is "good enough" for low budget run and gun video. And having the ability to run my stereo lav mixed down to one track lav one channel and a 'wild' shotgun from the top of the unit on two is worth the effort. I know, this is skating on thin ice, but so far it's worked. Having the ability to dual record onto the Tascam without hauling a separate unit and then feeding the 5D seems like a really nice idea. I'm not wild about giving up SD meters nor it's really high quality specs.

My sound engineer loves Tascam, always has. He thought that out of all the field recorders he and I had worked with, including SD and Edirol that for the money he was sold on the Tascam HD-P2 that I used for about a year. Felt that the pre-amps were superb for the money. Loved having SPDIF out and in. He has spent vastly more on his studio gear and he was crushed that I sold it for the Marantz. But he got over it (G).

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Al, long walk on the trace... but you'd enjoy it when you got there!

I shoot mainly with a 60D and a T2i as a backup/2nd cam. Double system is the way I've done it for a few years, and while it's a pain sometimes, I'm happy with the results. I'm usually a single shooter so the Tascam mounted under, say the locked down T2i, recording into the cam and the audio recorder would be great. That leaves me with my 60D to move around and get other shots.

If I'm doing a short or something like that, I'll have a sound person so the Tascam can be used by them. I still want to hear the pre-amp situation of the Zoom H6. I like the extra XLRs... what can I say? Run a boom mic, a few lavs, and maybe a hidden mic or two; all recording into separate channels sounds pretty good to me.

But first... what do it sound like??? I;ve heard tests of the Tascam here: Tascam DR-60D Audio testing with samples

Interesting...

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

I just just got the DR-60D in the mail yesterday and did some quick tests against the Tascam DR-40, which I was looking to replace.

WAY better pre-amps on the new 60D. I used a Sony 44B wired lav mic, which has a pretty low signal output, and on the DR-40 I got lots of noise and had to have the level turned almost all the way up to get a proper level. On the 60D, with the gain set to MED, I could get the same signal level with almost no noise whatsoever. With the gain set to HIGH, I did get more noise and i hotter signal, but adjusting the level down easily fixed that.

I haven't used this on a shoot yet, and I would say that mounted to the bottom of the camera it is quite large. It's not very heavy, but along with camera and a full set of batteries, it defiantly would be tiresome to hand hold for any extended period of time. I plan on shoulder strapping it or putting in a side bag if I'm one-man-band-ing it.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

...by the way, in previous tests that I've done, I've found the pre-amps to be just about the same in the Tascam DR-40 as in the Zoom H4N. So even though I haven't done a side by side comparison, I feel confident in saying that the Tascam 60D has much, much better preamps than the DR-40 or the H4N.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6 - Sent it back
 

I just got the DR-60D, looking to replace my SD-MixpreD and PM661 (two into one). I turned the unit on, and it immediately showed 2 bars out of 3 with batteries reading 1.46 to 1.4 volts. I did not even format a card in it. within 10 minutes, it had fallen to 1 bar, just sitting turned on on my desk.With a draw like that, it likely will not do well with eneloops. I packed it back up, got an RMA from B&H and it's going back.

I can easily run for over an hour on my PM661 and the Mixpre-D runs through a complete day it seems on two AAs.

This kind of power use means that field use is a constant battle of the batteries. I have enough to think about batteries with my wireless lavs and their receiver (which uses 8 batteries!).

Nice try Tascam! The fit and finish seem good, not great. the mounting bracket is not as robust as the Mixpre-D mount. If the battery life was better, I'd likely have kept it. Price point was great. Really seemed like a winner.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

humm..... funny.... I just used the DR-60 on a shoot yesterday, with no battery problems. I was using standard Energizer rechargeable also. I did about about 6 interview that ranged from 10-20 minutes each, and the unit was mostly on between takes. I managed to get about halfway through the battery charge, for was I'd say was an hour and a half to two hours of use.

I had been informed that it gets about 3 hours out of a battery charge, so that sounds about on target. Just my experience though.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6 - Sent it back
 

That was quick. I had a similar experience with My Tascam Dr100 MKII. I was going to send it back but I said I had time , I'll play with it a bit. Well the third day the battery situation was better, but it still goes to 2 bars quicker then I think it should. But it will sit a 2 bars and run for hours, even on 1 bar. Tt's just the nature of the beast. Plus the batteries will switch over anyway.

I'm glad I didn't rush to judgement as I love the sound quality.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Well, who knows. Maybe my particular unit was defective. The problem with doing a single review of a product is that you have nothing to compare it to. Quick question. Did you use fresh batteries out of the container, and if you didn't, did you happen to put the ones you did use on a volt meter? Perhaps the unit has a specific kind of draw that is not what we would expect. Have you tried using Eneloops at full charge?

I certainly am not saying my own experience was the whole story. Only my experience.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Al, my device has a lithium battery that comes with it. And as you know another compartment for AA's.

The only AA's I have used is enelopes. And they work quite well surprisingly because the only ones I had a round were a couple of years old. But they performed great. I did give them a full charge.

And the ability to start with AA's , and then switch to the lithium and then one more time to the AA's is awesome.

I'm loving it although the bars are a bit confusing.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

No batteries come with the DR-60D and they specifically call out Alkaline and Ni-Cad in the manual. When I put in fresh Lithium batteries, that spike at 1.6 or 1.7 Volts on the meter the unit works for about 10 seconds or less and shuts off. Other equipment that I have runs fine with the same batteries.

I also tried fully charged enlopes. (sic). They came up at 2 bars.

So I don't know what to make of the unit I had, other than it's not a replacement for the SD-MixpreD and PM661 that I already have. I just don't have issues like this with them.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

AA rechargeables are generally 1.2 volts opposed to the usual 1.5 for alkaline AAs.
Most of the portable recorders I've encountered offer an software menu option to select battery type, which may make the recorder's battery meter 'slightly' more accurate.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Al, under setting change AA battery to lithium and you are set.

Been using the Tascam for a week now, I am loving it.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Yeah both the 60 and the h6 look promising. Im debating on these two but not sure which one to get. I like the features of both so it boils down to the better preamps. They seem similar though

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

I'm also looking at both the DR-60D and the H6, but am currently leaning towards the 60D.

One thing that interests me is the startup time. My H4n recorders seem to take between 16 and 58 seconds to start up depending on what size card I put in them.

While I have a couple of smaller (2GB) cards, I have a dozen or so 32GB class 10 cards. The H4n takes 58 seconds to come ready with these cards, so I'm wondering what the startup time of the 60D in particular is with larger card sizes ?

While I could buy more 2GB cards it seems a shame to have lots of 32GB cards on the shelf and not be able to use them. Sometimes startup time is important!

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Anyone in the SF Bay Area with a 60D interested in a comparo with an H6?

Fran

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

Unfortunately I'm around 5,000 miles away so unlikely to meet up any time soon. Spent a log of time in the bay area and wouldn't mind coming back for a while..... just not this year :(

Anyway, took delivery of the DR-60D a couple of days ago after a lot of watching YouTube,Vimeo, reading blogs etc about both DR-60D and H6.

Things I loved about the H6:

• 4 XLRs + own ambient mics

• Long battery life.

• The pots on top for adjusting levels



Things I loved about the DR-60D:

• Form factor - the way it mounts so I can see it even on a relatively high mounted camera.

• I absolutely love the ability to record dual tracks with -6db or -12db in case anyone overloads a mic input.

• The Slate button is genius, others will surely follow, and it's saved me a lot of time syncing footage to second audio in just these couple of days. It's now trivial and I don't have to rely on software such as FCPX or PluralEyes to sync stuff.

• The ability to change levels without having to dive in to menus (H4n)



---The only gotchas I have on the DR-60D (so far) are ---:

• The LCD is a little smaller than I'd hoped. It's usable and I'm getting used to it.

• The battery life is OK, but not stellar. Using dynamic mics I got around 3.5 hours from Eneloop 2500s. I'm still testing with NTG2 / Phantom power but will have those results over the weekend.

• The slate button is not an instant tone. I was hoping to be able to give two or three fast pushes to mark a take number, while keeping rolling, but there's a significant delay between pushing the button and the slate tone starting, certainly seems like more than a second. I guess it's a safety feature so you don't catch it and throw tone all over your audio, but it would be nice if that delay was configurable.

• While you can create sub folders and tell it where to save the files, and even given it some different names for files, I can't seem to be able to rename those folders. Anyone know if this can be done?

• In BWF mode, the time code and content created time differ slightly, although having timecode is awesome. Between this and the slate tone life just got a lot easier for external audio.



--- Things I like over the H4n units I have ---:

• Startup time! OMG! Using 32GB class 10 cards the H4n used to take 58 seconds to come ready. The DR-60D is ready in about 5 seconds.

• Being able to see the levels while camera mounted

• Being able to adjust the levels without diving in to some sub menu

• Being able to record the same thing at two different levels (dual mono or dual stereo mode)

• It seems to have a much lower noise floor

• I can record 4 tracks as inputs and don't have to worry about recording and throwing away the internal mic stuff which I almost never use.

Re: Tascam DR-60D vs Zoom H6
 

So I decided to keep both. When doing dslr shoot I will use the tascam. And I use the zoom for mixing additional mics into he computer.