Total posts : 45366
I appreciate all the good input regarding a mobile voice recorder.
Having looked at the Sony website at all the specs for Neil’s ICDPX312, it does say that the mic input is stereo, and it does not mention whether the onboard mic is stereo, but the picture looks like there is a single mic at the top of the unit, I would expect it to be mono.
I took a look at many upscale professional recorders listed at Markertek’s website, and they have generous price mark downs, but they all looked like overkill for what I’m trying to do, and they all seemed to have stereo mics, but of course in the editing one could shut off one track and obtain a mono feed.
Thing is I don’t trust the mics on those otherwise professional units. Case in point is my Zoom H4 which has two mics angled in the X-Y configuration, and I was stunned by how poor the sound from those mics is. I even tried bending thier sound using EQ, but there’s something they did to totally cripple the inbuilt mics…. my theory is that they are trying to help the equipment vendors by making audio quality a necessary upgrade to a better mic, which is exactly what I did by adding an Astatic Boundary mic which records crystal clear perfect sound for my application.
Even though I’m willing to spend more money, I am arriving at the opinion that Neil’s Sony Voice recorder will be the best choice for my simple use, which is to record voice at close range, and as it happens, I like hearing background ambience, whether it’s a fan running or traffic or a crowd.
Also, Neil has a good point to be explored, that of using a dynamic microphone. I’m sure I’ll end up trying that.
I am a stickler for mono voice because the voice is by nature a monaural instrument, and many setups that record voice in stereo end up with phase cancelation for mono AM listeners. There is one program I run which I might e-mail to suggest they fix their poor mono phase which I suspect is from two mics widely spaced.
I will have more to report on this subject.
