I will be reviewing the edirol r1 for you guys just be patient until I do it
right. I will give you this information now.
Here are some Good points of the recorder. The edirol r1 is the best
recorder I have ever had. for a recorder you get your moneys worth. the
built in mikes are very good. You do get fast transfers from the recorder
to the pc for editing. The encoding at 192 kbps MP3 is good. I have not had
the problem that mike Lang had with recording a blank file so they must have
fixed that in the firmware. The recording effects such as echo and voice
change are nice to record with but these features are lost on me sense I
just want a great recording and with the edirol I get that. You do have an
adjustable recording level on the recorder and it has a good monitoring
feature. I have not tried AGC yet to determine how that sounds, and I
probably will not. The power and lock switches are nice but having gotten
use to the Iriver's electronic on off switch I forget to switch the edirol
off some times.
The main thing is the edirol has a great downloadable manual that blind
folks can read. There is not a bunch of graphics to describe the buttons and
the operating instructions of all of the functions are precise and straight
forward. A very good and easy manual to use.
And here are some bad points of the machine.
The major issue with this machine for the cost is no editing capability what
so ever. I would have expected at least the editing capability of the Sony
mzb 100 but there is none of that. there is no way to delete files or
portions of a file on the fly. you can delete a file by going through the
menus but that is time consuming. I know of no way yet to create track
points either by creating new files or pressing a button to insert track
points in to a filewith out pausing the recording.
and the worst thing is you can't scroll through a file audibly while
reviewing the file in play mode.
if you press the back or forward buttons you get no sound until you release
the button and the player jumps to the new place in the recording.
This in my opinion is terrible. With the Sony you could at least here the
scan as you go back and forth. if I weren't transferring files to the pc for
editing this lack of editing features alone would cause me not to keep the
recorder.
The second point on my list is powering of the machine and the fact that
the recorder does not have a means of recharging batteries.
I wonder which battery company the edirol manufacturers was sleeping with.
when you are in the field you have to power the recorder from two AA
batteries that you have to insert in to the player. This thing is hard on
batteries. You will get about 60 Minutes of recording on standard batteries.
NIMH batteries are some what oversized for this recorder causing you to
force them in to their slots but you can double actually triple the
recording time with those. But, Why did the manufacture not give you a
rechargeable power supply for this unit as much as it costs. I am going to
have a battery pack designed for the machine because I will not keep
changing batteries in, and out. You must have a fresh set of batteries for
each recording cession. I feel that with the constant changing of batteries
that you will eventually damage the machines battery compartment.
All other problems are with the plastic case of the machine and are just
minor complaints except for one, the compact flash slot. The problem with it
is that the slot was overly designed. The manufacturer wanted the card
totally in cased in plastic so you would not damage it. You have to open a
compartment with a poorly designed door, and press a button to get the card
out. in my opinion they should have just had the card sticking about 1/4th
of an inch from the recorder the way the manufacturer of the bookport does,
so you could just grab it with two fingers and change it out. This does not
bother me as I bought a 2 GB flash card and never plan on changing out that
card. When you change the batteries you must take the battery back off and
hold it in your fingers while you change the batteries. I would rather the
battery compartment door would have been attached in some way, or I would
like to have been able to slide the two batteries down a barrel and cap it
off. This is just bitching sense I just don't like changing batteries in and
out of the thing anyway.
I had to put non skid feet on the bottom of this machine as the case was a
bit unleveled and would make noise on the table. I would expect that from a
$30 tape recorder maybe but not a $400 one. Again just bitching the rubber
feet I put on work fine.
there is no handle or carrying strap on the case of the Edirol so you must
tote the recorder around in your hand which is a bit awkward.
you get a cheap zippered case with the recorder but it is just a body bag
for the machine with no handles or carrying straps .
I have fumbled the recorder a couple of times because of this awkward way
of carrying it so I have purchased a camera case to carry it in. a
transistor radio costing $3 had a carrying strap on its corner.
Two reasons I did not return this recorder.
I do like the way it records. This is the best recorder I have had or heard.
it seems that all of the quality of design went to building the recorders
insides and that is good.
The other reason is I dinged the corner of the machine with one of those
drops I mentioned and don't feel it would be fair to the seller to send the
recorder back damaged.
TO sum up I like this recorder but it does have issues to be worked out
so that it will be an excellent field recorder.
If you want the best bang for the buck all around purchase the iriver H340.
It has a good player and a good recorder and it does have rechargeable
batteries. I would recamend purchasing the external remote with the recorder
so that some of the functions would be easier to use. The recorder is a lot
lighter, smaller and it is a hard drive recorder.
_______________________________________________
PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more...
http://www.pc-audio.org
To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
