I had the luxury of having all 5 of these portable digital recorders in my house at once and did a massive head to head comparison. I was glad to see the quality reviews posted here but none of them touched on what I really wanted to do: Record rock band practices.

So I brought all 5 up to the practice space, put them an inch apart and recorded a band rocking out. I also recorded myself singing a quick little acoustic tune in my living room with them all 3 feet away. This way I could A/B compare them.

SIZE: All these recorders are relatively small compared to the old days but the Yamaha 2G and Edirol are probably the smallest and lightest. The CX and Olympus are a tad bigger with the Olympus being noticably heavy for its size. That might be a good thing unless it's in your pocket. The Tascam is freaking HUGE. Small for a portable practice amp, but big in this crowd. Not pocketable. You can see some pics of them all compared here:




BATTERY LIFE: It's stated in the various reviews on this site but the Yamaha units get great battery life compared to the others. The Edirol in particular seemed to suffer. Running most of its battery out during a rehearsal.

FEATURES: Each unit has various plusses and minuses. None of them have the one feature I want the most, the ability to record with internal mics or via a plug-in mic while applying a light degree of compression (say 3:1) with an analog limiter. This makes virtually every "jam" sound far more professional. As of now, I'd have to dump rehearsals into Pro-tools and add compression myself. The Tascam GTr1 has compression but it's part of an effects chain that seriously compromises the signal transparency. It's more useful for processed drums, or electric guitar.

The Olympus and Tascam have built in reverb. Kind of cool I guess for playing back. For me, if I wanted reverb, I'd probably prefer to do it on my compy as the devices just add reverb temporarily for playback purposes.

The Tascam & olympus have input level wheels. Nice. The others use buttons... annoying.

The Tascam has zillions of effects to allow you play electric guitar plugged straight in. It also allows you to overdub on top of a previous recording. Allowing 1-take quick demo building. It even has a tuner, metronome and simple preset drum patterns.

SOUND QUALITY: This was my most important criteria. I wanted a device I could just pop-on in a room and get an accurate picture of band practices or rock shows in a club. That means they'd need to have decent bass response and be able to handle high SPLs. All the devices handled the rock volume well except the Tascam. I had a problem with the Tascam. During the rock band sessions, the input was clipping pretty hard (though the levels were fine). Either its pre-amps can't take a bit of rock volume (which contradicts other posts here) OR I'm going to assume it was user error and try that single recorder again tomorrow. It worked fine for acoustic stuff.

It's telling to hear the devices all right after each other. Especially interesting is how plugging in a single-point stereo battery powered mic, an Audio Technica AT822 ($230 online) sounded far better than the built-in mics on every device. If uber portability isn't paramount, I'd get a cheap recorder and use the external mic.

Yamaha CX & Olympus LS-10: Amazingly, these two sounded nearly identical. I'd almost put money on them using the exact same mic capsule, so close were the results. Both have pretty limited bass response and an extended though slightly sizzly treble. Each has their own midrage "color" to them and I never quite figured out which was more accurate. They worked well for acoustic guitar (though a tad unnaturally bright). Less satisfying for rock bands as the bass rolled off hard under about 80hz (guessing).

Yamaha 2G: Suprisingly good sound from such tiny capsules, especially in the low end, which was much better than the Olympus and Yamaha CX. From about 8-10Khz on up though, things start to roll off and the overall sound was cloudy and compressed. I actually liked the warmer sound in certain cases though I missed hearing the cymbals with any degree of realism. It was more than fine for a quick acoustic & vocal demo.

Tascam GT-R1: Sounded somewhat between the 2G and the Ls-10/CX units. Bass was pretty good and treble was more extended than the 2G though a bit chalky and wooden sounding up at the tip-top. Extreme highs seemed somewhat rolled off (>14Khz or so). It was pretty flattering on acoustic guitar and voice though I missed the transparency and imaging I got from the external Audio Technica AT822.

Edirol R-09: This isn't the newer HD version though I've read the mics are basically the same in that one. I thought the frequency response was the most natural and extended in this unit. I still found the treble a bit phasey and sizzley compared to the Audio Technica AT822

External Mic AT-822: this $230 mic sounded FAR better than all the built in mics of these recorders. The treble was more extended and more importantly, was natural sounding. I could cut tracks to CD with this mic, especially just popping it in front of an acoustic guitar. It also had much better spatial resolution and imaging. Add some compression and it sounds like a good live album. It sounded different in each device though. The 2G was fine for rock practice but for soft acoustic numbers, the pre-amp was very noisy. The Olympus,Tascam, and Edirol all sounded great with this mic.

SAMPLES: For right now, I'm putting all the samples up here in this ZIP file encoded into high bitrate Mp3s. If someone wants to host this file more permanently, I'd love it. O'reilly?

Each track is normalized to peak at 0dB to obviate any recording level differences

Mp3 Samples

This post has been edited by brandobean: Dec 11 2008, 02:30 AM

Big thanks for doing this roundup, Brandobean!

This is exactly the type of information and opinion we hoped to get when we launched this forum. I'll look into hosting your MP3 files here ASAP; we've been working on implementing an embedded audio player.

As it turns out, it WAS user error. The Tascam has a mic sensitivity menu item accisible via a totally parallel menu system. It has 3 levels - high, med, and low. It defaults to Med and that's what I'd used for my rock band tests. Why they bury such an important feature in a menu is beyond me... it should be a switch.

I've uploaded a few new samples of the Tascam compared to the Olympus here:
NOTES:

1. no band was there so I had my non musician girlfriend play a low E on the bass while I played drums...you can still tell the tonal differences though - The olympus is clearer/brighter)
2. The Olympus was gently hitting the limiter. You can hear the compressed snare sound and everything is a tad louder (both are normalized to have the same peak level). If you hit the limiter much harder, it starts to distort on peaks. Clearly the limiter is made for light occasional transient taming, not for brick-wall limiting.

This post has been edited by brandobean: Dec 11 2008, 12:47 PM

Your own site has a great article on adding embedded Mp3 players which YOU wrote!. It's super simple, like exactly ONE line of code. Go for it!

Kudos! Great report Brandobean (and nice photo btw).

[OK, just got your files so I'm editing my post]

I assume you had the low cut filter turned off on the LS-10? The LS-10 really sounds bright compared to your example with the Audio-Technica AT-822. I do prefer the AT-822 much better (probably as the stereo-imaging sounds better to me) but I think I'd want to add a bit up hi-end EQ boost to it. Yet, when you use the AT-822 with the Tascam, it sounds much brighter to me. I wonder is the performance or location different? Or is it that the AT-822 really sounds this different interfaced to the two different recorders?

The Tascam high-end sounds quite muffled or rolled-off to me (compare the cymbal). Are both recorders in close proximity? Its strange if the high-end is that different.

Well thanks again for these tests. Fun stuff. This is a really good case for using an external mic I think.

Ha! We are investigating using Yahoo Media Player here. But the forum uses a different architecture than the blogs and feature articles, so MP3 links aren't encoded as a href="filename.mp3". Maybe there's a PHP-based player that will do the trick. Also, I really want our player to have a location slider, which YMP doesn't yet.

I should have been more clear about where these were recorded:
1. Acoustic and Voice: All were recorded from about 3-4 ft away. The Internal Mic tracks were all recorded at the same time. The AT-822 tracks, since I only had the one mic, were recorded in the same position, just in subsequent takes.

2. Rock band: The internal mic sessions were all recorded at the same time in virtually the same position (in a 1ft row). I forgot to record a take with the AT822 so I used a recording from the previous day that was in basically the same position. It's true that for that ONE track, the bass and guitars may have been at slightly different relative volumes since it was a different day. Still you can hear the clarity compared to the internal mics.

The Olympus did not have its low cut filter on. I made sure of that. It sounded virtually identical to the CX. I agree the Tascam is somewhat muffled, just not as much as the Yamaha 2G is.

The funny thing is, after all these auditions, I ended up buying NONE of these recorders. Since I determined the external mic makes things sound so much better, I'll likely buy a zoom H4 or H2 since those are currently $130 & $160 online, far cheaper than the others.

This post has been edited by brandobean: Dec 11 2008, 05:56 PM

Interesting decision....and it makes sense as long as you're happy with the operational interface. You might consider giving the Zoom H4 some weight with its external XLR mic inputs if you'll always be using an external mic.

Now, I wonder how the Audio Technica AT-822 compares with the Sony ECM-957 or Rode NT4?

btw, how did you get so many recorders at once? Did you just buy them? Or have a cousin at B&H? Anywho, thanks for doing this - its been really interesting to see comparisons of them all at once. A realworld shootout that few are willing or able to do.

Just want to say thank you for doing this. The sensativity filter sure made a difference on the Tascam.

Dan

I just bought the R-09HR after returning a Zoom unit.
I want it to record our band directly from the mixer/amp. It has a stereo line out.
There's nothing in the R-09HR manual about this type of recording, although I suspect it's the same as
recording from a CD player.
The Zoom clipped badly when recording from the mixer/amp.
I considered putting a limiter between the two devices.
Any suggestions on how to get a distorsion free signal using the line in on the R-09HR?
Thank you.

This post has been edited by yayacity: Dec 17 2008, 11:46 PM

A limiter will not help you in that situation. Most likely, you're dealing with a level or an impedance issue.

You could try padding the outputs of your mixer and lowering your record volume and see if that works. I'm not familiar with the R-09HR but if you're trying to send a line level into a mic input then you'll need a pad with lots of attenuation.

Below are some links about pads.

All about pads

Line level signal to microphone input adapter

Line-level inputs and outputs are supposed to operate at the same, standard level so you can connect devices without worrying about overload. However, some manufacturers let you raise the line output level, and the Zoom H2 has an unusually sensitive line input, so it's easy to overload. As Greg suggested, there are also two common line level standards: –10dBV (consumer) and +4dBu (pro). The latter is higher.

If the Edirol input overloads as well, try feeding it from an aux output on the mixer and reducing the level there.

Hey Brando,
Thanks for the lengthy reviews! I'm deciding between the Tascam GT-R1 and the Olympus LS-10 at the moment. Question on the GT-R1, did you notice if you can:

1) plug in your guitar, put on effects and hear them while you are playing or do the effects only work when playing your recorded track back?
2) plug your guitar in to play along and record voice through the condenser simultaneously?

Also, what did you wind up keeping?

Thanks Much,
Carey

Same here...

I am looking to get a yamaha 2g or cx or olympus ls10...to help my guitar ensemble practice or perhaps record a concert. This article opens my eye and idea...

In addition, I've been pondering getting a good mic and usb audio interface for home recording. But I was put off by all the usb interface driver issue in windows vista 64 (all brands). BTW, I planned to get a akg c451b (or c480b, ouch!) and tascam us144. However, judging from how impressed the OP with the at822. I think I could just get that and use my laptop directly and by pass the audio interface considering at822 is self powered and can be plugged into the regular laptop port. As for software, I'll just use audacity and will primary will use it to record nylon string guitar. Do you think this is a workable solution?

thanks,

Gary

Brilliant report, well documented. Helped me to decide to buy the Yamaha 2g.

Thank you. Greetings from the UK.

Ian