A friend of mine brought his over complaining that there was no sound from the speaker. Of course the speaker had been turned off - I sort of expected something like that, but the real problem is that no matter what I try the recording levels are pitifully low. If I tap the mic I can hear it on playback but it's not particularly loud. Speech from 12 inches away barely registers. I have the gain cranked up all the way and close speech is pretty much inaudible.

Either I'm missing something or the unit is defective (or both!)

Any ideas would be welcome. I don't personally use any Tascam stuff so I won't rule out the possibility of operator error.

Thanks