I finally got my R1 in the post today. I’m going to spend the next hour or so pouring over the manual. I’ll make some pub/session recordings this week and post a review later this week. It’s only 1 inch thick, and 5 x 4.75. Fits snugly in the palm of my hand, EASILY into my coat pocket and is quite light.
I will warn you all however, that it’s a difficult item to get ahold of. It release in the US seems to have been delayed by a few months and suppliers seem to be having a tough time getting them in stock. I think they underestimated the market’s response.
Well…first off..a very well written and helpful manual. This thing is loaded with great functions and versatility. Looks like I’ll be selling my old marantz tape recorder/player…
I’ve made some initial voice as well as instrumental recordings and find this thing extremely easy to use..easy user interface…
I found mine through a computer and audio store in california. After weeks of trying to discover when they MIGHT get their order, they got ONE in stock…and I was luckily first on the list.
Well…I’ve always liked my marantz…(the tape version) it’s served me well. I’ve had to send it in for repairs. But it is large and cumbersome..the pmd 670 weighs just over 4 lbs. while the teeny weeny eddie weighs 260 grams.
The 670 is about $300 more expensive and the eddie seems to have all the same features (plus some others the mrantz doesn’t have). The eddie is a “new” product, while the marantz has some field experience under it’s belt…
..so..some things to consider. I’ll be heading out later this week to make some field recordings and give it a good trial run. I’m also going to upgrade to a 2gig flash card to add that to the experience…more to come!
those are the very specs that have me deciding between the two. I’ll be interested to hear your feedback after your on-site recording trials.
Have you found the internal mics to be of quality, or are they typical internal mics but in a stereo config?
I guess the mics would be the biggest issue for me. If they are decent, and you get away with it all in that small package then it is perfect. If I end up having to carry and X-Y stereo mic pair just to get decent recording with it then I might as well carry the extra couple of pounds and get the marantz w/ phantom power.
I ordered mine after Edirol told me they’re trickling them out. Edirol is essentially Roland! Btw-there are 4 gig flash cards avail. but prrrrrrrr-icey!
I wouldn’t buy ANYTHING made by Marantz nowa days. I did a reveiw for them sometime back…they sent me a product. Musicians have nothing to do with the design of their products.
how does the quality compare to, say, either a sony dat or minidisc ?
halfway in between ?
everyone keeps telling me that dats are a thing of the past, but i’ve been considering getting one to get the most of my xlr mikes
There is NO comparison to the MD. The Edirol sounds like a CD at 320kbps..never mind 16 and 24 bit ..which it can do. it is truely an amazing unit. FINALLY…we can now move beyond MD recording. i.e. this is easy..the effects w.in are very nice too. You can even master you recording in the unit itself. Simply amazing. forget getting DAT. You’re moving in the wrong direction. the sound good, but they are TAPE afterall. The internal mics ROCK and are crystal clear.
can’t say enough good things about mine. ebay your MD and don’t buy a DAT …just my humble opinion.
I got mine here www.bswusa.com
they threw in a free set of Sennheiser headphones… not too shapbby
This Korg PXR4 4-Track Digital Recorder uses SmartMedia cards too. I wonder how it compares to the Edirol. The Edirol has two tracks (one stereo), but I wonder if they both have the same capable signals (mpeg, wave, mp3, etc.) reading the [u]Korg Product Descriptions[/u], and the [u]Edirol’s[/u].
The Korg IMHO really isn’t in the same league as the Edirol R1. Its more of a cheap digital multi track and takes many key strokes to do even the most simple recording of a new track. It uses SmartMedia which is limited to 128 MB and is pretty much a dead format.
One of my students uses one to record our weekly classes. Works well enough, but I wouldn’t recommend it as an ideal solution for high quality stereo field recording.
I can’t wait for the Edirol to show up locally, on the waiting list.
I would expect that the recordings made by the R1 would be much better than any of the consumer grade mini four-track recorders, better than the iRiver MP3 players + encoder, better than the RipFlash units, etc.
Several reasons:
None of the cheaper consumer units that I’ve tried have microphones or preamps that were intended for more than voice recording. Most have at best a cheap mono microphone embedded in the unit, often time picking up motor noise and electrical noise from the hard drive. They don’t often have much control over signal level. The R1 was designed from the start to be a field recorder, has stereo microphones built-in and uses CompactFlash as its recording media.
The Edirol R1 records with raw 24 bit 44.1 Khz stereo sampling. I’ve not seen a consumer player/encoder that records 24 bit raw PCM.
I’d be willing to bet that the A/D convertors on the R1 are much higher quality than those on the consumer player/encoders.
I’ve gone through a number of the consumer grade devices, finally gave up on them and bought a Marantz PMD-670. I’ll probably get an R1 as well for more impromptu use as the PMD-670 is fairly large.
There again I think it all depends on what you want. I’ve done loads of recordings with my iRiver and have been very happy with the results. The line-in amp is good enough when recording level is set to maximum level. The Edirol will only last two hours for recording (works on 2AA batteries) and the iRiver will last much more without having to recharge. Many times I’ve been to sessions where I needed at least 5 hours of recording, and always having to carry loads of batteries on you all the time isnt what I call very useful.
The iRiver is 300$, the Edirol is 430$. The iRiver has 20GIG space, the Edirol comes with 64MB of memory. If I go travelling for 2-3 weeks, I’ll need at least 2GIG, which means not only do I have to buy 2GIG memory card(s), but I won’t have any space for my own collection of MP3s which is about 3GIG.
As I said, Edirol vs iRiver really depends on what are your needs. If for you recording at 24 bits for a perfect sound stream is your priority over everything else, then I’d say go with Edirol. If price and storage room matters and MP3 encoded at 256kb/s is enough, then the iRiver is the perfect solution.
My iRiver is now away for repairs, and I might have lost it since it seems the shipping company lost track of it, and it’s been a month. But I’m insured and will get the money in exchange, so I’m currently looking for a replacement for my iRiver. I bought a very small FLASH media player from Creative Labs, it’s 1GIG and about 1.5" x 2.5" x 0.5". But there’s no preamp, so I had to order a mini preamp module. It still ends up being much cheaper than Edirol + memory. I might also get the newer iRiver when I get the money from shipping insurance.
PS: One of the advantages Edirol has over iRiver is that the internal microphone is good enough to be used for recordnings AND you don’t have booting time. So when you need to grab a tune very quickly, nothing will beat Edirol for that, you can get it going in about 3-4 seconds I guess. With iRiver it would take you at least 15 seconds if you’re on cafeine.
