MP3 or Minidisk?
 

Just wondering which is better for capturing good audio from my Rode Videomic. Also can anyone reccommend which units are good for around $250.00?

i got a sony minidisc portable recorder/player with a mic level and line in for 30$ on ebay with blank discs. it records the audio pretty darn good. the inputs are 1/8th mini plug though.

You might take look at the m-Audio Microtrack 2496. It's a little higher price than your quoted figure but not too much higher. It's new and the early adopters have given it some mixed reviews due to glitches but I hear its problem areas seem to be getting sorted out as m-Audio issues firmware upgrades. Worth looking at anyway.

The microtrack is great, so is an HDMD mini disk. Standard minidisks might work for non-critical audio, but there is a significant loss in quality from the mic output, to what the MD system actually records.
http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?i...d-a1ebcaaf1463 will show you some charts as to the differences between PCM and ATRAC audio, which is what standard MD's record.

Back to the original question: mp3 or HI-MD?

Often it is said that recordings to the HI-MD recorders are better than to e.g an iriver iFP, I suppose mostly due to difference of format.

However I want to draw your attention to the discontinued iriver harddisc mp3 players/recorders H120 / H140 and H320 / H340 ( 20GB / 40 GB ). The H1xx natively can record in WAV, the H3xx series only if installing the socalled 'Rockbox' firmware. Rockbox does seem to have it's problems as well, but it even seems to have a socalled 'on the fly7 control for controlling recoding levels while recording, and also puts level meters on the iriver' display!

I wonder if those WAV recordings to the irivers H1xx and H3xx could match the recordings to the HI-MD recorders.
The Rockbox version with the on the fly level adjustment and level meters could even be superior then?

The very active forums of Rockbox and Misticriver seem to suggest that there are many out there who do favour those irivers to the HI-MDs.

For further informatin please check out:
http://www.misticriver.net/forums.php resp:
http://www.misticriver.net/showthrea...326#post450326
and:
http://www.rockbox.org/ resp.
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?...2e2e0a048fa&#1

or:
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=1966.0
http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=3474.0

Hi-md
 

You might check out the new Sony MZ-RH1 recorder it also can record PCM Wav in outstanding quality.
It is a little above your budget but never the less.

henk trijny

recently I researched this quetion to find my future audio recorder.
I lack experience, but my ranking for low cost solutions would be:

1) Sony HiMD recorder
2) Edirol R-9
3) iriver H 120

Sony HiMDs can be found cheaply on ebay, they record to 1 GB HiMDs in Atrac but also in PCM which convert to WAV once uploaded to the PC via Sonic Stage, a Sony software you will need. Can be had cheaply, around 150 USD on ebay, latest top model RH1 costs 300+ though. Quality of recordings is high, mic level adjustable on the fly, max recording time to one HiMD if highest quality Linear PCM 1.4mbps is 1hour34min. http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html

Edirol R-9 record to SD cards max. 1 GB ( 2 GB cards have issues ) in PCM or MP3. Easy to handle, small and lightweight, stereo mics on board get mixed reviews. Rank second because of higher price ( around 400 UDS? ), not because of recording quality. http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=65175.0

Iriver H 120 has 20, the model H 140 40 GB on board. Records in WAV or MP3. With original iriver firmware some issues, e.g. click for dropped sample and limited record time if WAV of about 70(?) minutes. Better recorder if using 'Rockbox' which addressed the mentioned issues and introduces live level adjustments, level meters, hours to record. Models H320 and H340 record in mp3 only if using irive firmware, but also WAV with Rockbox installed, than the only difference between H1xx and H3xx series is that H1xx also has optical in. Quality very likely somewhat inferior due to inferior preamp or/and digital conversion, this can be overcome if using external preamp and optical in of the H120.
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=64277.0