Re: OT: portable audio recorders

[andy butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

d.nix wrote:
>> er, it's a total waste of time dropping the recording volume to 75.
>> The distortion happens in the analog domain, and that vol
>> control is digital.
>>
> 
> All I know is that if I *dont* lower that setting it _digitally_ clips 
>and
> distorts, and if I do set it to 75 it does not distort. Therefore it's 
>not a
> waste of time, regardless...
> 
> :-)
> 

It's not impossible that your H2 behaves different to mine..
...but surely that's very unlikely.

I'd not argue that your "75" recording was actually distorted 
...but I have to admit my first thought was that your band played a bit 
quieter, or the H2 was in a different position.
;-)

Easy to settle the question (if you could be bothered :-)
I'd be expecting to see that your file didn't have
any peaks over what would correspond to the level of a distorted recording
made at 75. 
If you've got bigger peaks than that in your file, then you're right
and it's worth using the 75 setting.

I've seen a number of comments on forums to say that the
volume range beneath 100 on the Zoom H2 offers no advantage.
I can assure you that I test stuff very thoroughly before 
criticising it, and that my only motivation is to help folks
get best results on their recordings.



I always have the volume at 100, I've never got digital clipping
..always analog. (it *is* very sharp clipping, but it's caused by the 
input to the D/A)
I'm 100% certain you'd only get digital clipping
if you put the volume up beyond 100...because at 100
you're getting exactly the full range of the converters.


 For critical recordings I use 24 bit and then
convert to 16 after sorting the levels in an editor.


The H2
*Is Capable Of Really Good Results*

andy