ProAudio Review - April 2008 - (Page 36)

BROADCAST | ZOOM Continued From Page 34 REVIEW Adjust display contrast, turn backlight on/off ● Key hold (lock controls) ● Update system software All these features are accessible via the Menu and don't get in the way of recording operations. The H2 has a limited 1-year warranty. ● PRODUCTPOINTS • Easy to use • Good value • Many extra useful features, such as surround miking • Very good sound, wide stereo • None noted SCORE The Zoom H2 is one of the best values on the market. | IN USE The unit is well designed for ease of use. Batteries and SD card are easy to access, as are the connectors and controls, which are clearly labeled. Navigating the menu features is intuitive. To access the features, simply press the Menu button, then press the arrow keys or the Record button to select and set various parameters. The buttons feel solid. I first used the H2 to record an acoustic guineeded a 20 dB pad ahead of the H2’s Line Input in order to avoid clipping. The mics sound fairly good and provide a reasonably well-defined and stable stereo image. I found the front-and-back 2-channel “surround” mode to be particularly useful for interviews. Sitting across the table from my subject with the recorder in the middle and turned about 30 degrees off axis yielded a stereo recording with the two of us separated left and right. My gripe list is fairly short. Some of these things can be fixed with a firmware update if Sam Zoom thinks they’re sufficiently important, while others are inherent in the hardware architecture and we’ll have to live with them. The 2000 mA-H NiMH batteries that I used for testing provided just over three hours of recording time on a charge. This is a near perfect match for 44/16 recording on a 2 GB memory card (both power and file space run out at about the same time), but I didn’t get significantly more recording time from a charge using the 192 kbps MP3 mode, a mode that I’d be more likely to use for informal recordings. My battery gripe is that there’s no provision for charging the installed batteries when operating on AC power or from the USB port. Since there’s a menu-operated switch to select between alkaline and NiMH batteries (this changes the characteristics of the battery life indicator), if the hardware was there, the charging function could be enabled when the NiMH mode was selected. The H2 records time stamped Broadcast Wave files (BWF), but the time stamp of each file is 00:00:00 rather than the BWF standard time based on the number of samples after midnight. There’s a clock/calendar which time-stamps the files, so the recorder knows tar at 18 inches. Here are the steps: ● Set the mic pattern to Front/90 degrees ● Set the mic gain to high ● Press the Record button ● Strum a few chords and check that the Mic-Active LED does not flash ● Set the recording level. The LCD screen meters are easy to read ● Press the Record button again and record a tune That's all there is to it. Q: How did the built-in mics sound? A: Smooth, wide-range, and uncolored. I also recorded a standup bass with the Zoom H2 and with a flat-response omni condenser mic. The two recordings sounded the same except that the omni had a little more deep bass and about 4 dB less hiss. When I recorded a voice, the H2 and the omni mic sounded essentially the same. ZOOM continues on page 38 ➤ | SECOND OPINION: ZOOM H2 I liked what I saw of the H2 mockup at the January 2007 NAMM show and have eagerly awaited its arrival. While I wouldn’t expect a recorder like this to be one I’d take to a professional gig, I’ve been looking for something I could carry in a pocket or banjo case to record a good jam session or grab a tune that I wanted to learn. The H2 fits this niche nicely. It’s small, the case is smooth with no pointy things or fragile projections, the built-in mics are well protected, and there don’t seem to be any obvious mechanically weak parts waiting to break. I really can carry the H2 in my pants pocket if I’m careful not to sit down on it. The display is clear and the menus are, for the most part, self-explanatory. It took a while to get used to using the left-right buttons to scroll up and down through the menu, but otherwise menu operation is just fine. Typical of this genre, the record volume up/down buttons adjust the digital level after the A/D converter, so it’s important to understand the H2’s gain structure. Using the “Rec Level Down” button to bring the meters on scale will almost surely result in a clipped recording. The scale on the (digital) record level runs from 0 to 127, with 100 apparently being the unity gain setting. I’d have preferred this to be calibrated in dB, and, of course, anything below 100 (0 dB) is the danger zone. The bright “Mic Active” LED flashes to indicate analog clipping, but it’s only active when using the internal mics. There’s a three-position analog attenuator switch (0, -10, and –24 dB) to get the analog level into the ballpark. It works on the built-in mics and external mic input, but not on the Line Input. When recording from a mixer, I what time it is and could use this information for the BWF time stamp as well. In a related issue, when viewing File Information, the “Time” displayed is the length of the recording. It would be useful if the file date and time were also displayed. Since files are named automatically (they can be renamed, up to 7 characters, with patience), when browsing the file list, knowing when the recording was made might help to identify the material. Although the clock/calendar keeps alive for several hours without batteries, the “preferences” (sample rate, pre-record mode, compressor/limiter mode, low-cut filter, etc.) are stored in a file on the flash memory card. When you install a new or freshly formatted card, the recorder reverts to its default settings, some of which you may need to change before recording again. This can increase your “reel change” time. My one totally out-of-scope wish is that the H2 could write data to an external USB storage device (like a hard-disk drive) as an alternative to the flash memory card. I’ve dreamed of this for a while now (I do a lot of all-day recording gigs), and my crystal ball tells me that we may start seeing this feature in the next generation of portable recorders. There’s a lot to like with the H2. It makes perfectly good casual recordings with its internal mics, it sounds pretty good when fed from a good quality line-level source as long as you don’t let it clip, and its size, shape, and weight make it no hassle to carry along if I think I might want to record something. At the price, it’s going to be hard to resist. — Mike Rivers 36 | ProAudio Review | April 2008 Subscribe to the Digital Edition of Pro Audio Review http://www.myparmag.com www.proaudioreview.com http://www.proaudioreview.com http://www.myparmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - April 2008

ProAudio Review - April 2008 Contents A Little More Recognition Please Studio News and New Products API 1608 16-Channel Analog Console TASCAM X-48 Digital Audio Workstation SSL Matrix Super Analogue Console Toft Audio Design Series ATB Analog Console KRK Systems Exposé E8B Powered Monitor Broadcast News and New Products ZOOM H2 Portable Digital Recorder Producing Surround Sound at 50th Grammy Awards JBL LSR4312SP Linear Spatial Reference Powered Subwoofer Audio Production For Gaming Euphonix S5 Fusion Digital Post Production Console NAB Hot Gear Soundcraft Vi6 Digital Live Production Console Go To A Show! Contracting News and New Products Studio Consoles Studio Wireless Microphones Alicia Keys “Superwoman”

ProAudio Review - April 2008

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