Warning. I'm about to stick my very thick head into a very big lion's mouth--the argument over accessibility vs useability. Don't flame me for my having this opinion, flame me for my points.
On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:01:15 -0500, Jerry Richer wrote: > Doug! Have you considered the Edirol R-1. It's a high quality audio >recorder with no setup involved and accessible. None of what I am about to say takes away one iota from the fact that the unit in question is a good one. I'm getting used to its quirks and general operation, and am coming to rather depend on it, something I'm not quite used to doing with a piece of electronics. I'm 52 years old, from the old slate-and-stylus school of notetaking, it's served me all my life, and until I either do something stupid with my fingers or develop diabetes and some form of neuropathy, I'll probably continue my notetaking tasks in this same way. But with the addition of the R-1 to my arsenal of stone knives and bearskins, I'm getting a lot more out of some of the two- and three-hour meetings I've been asked to attend lately, and, while I'm not quite ready to say I don't know how I did without it (or something like it) for as long as I have, I can honestly say that I can see how folks could come to that place. What follows is not an argument against the machine. The machine is a good one. As I said, it has its quirks and its drawbacks, but the value I get out of it outweighs most of them, so, for me, it works. Let's start with the issue of accessibility. The R-1 is not accessible but useable to a point. To me, accessible doesn't just mean having the ability to know what buttons to push as long as I can remember what they are, or carry a cheat-sheet around with me to remind me. If that's all accessibility takes, then heck, why are we all going on about the need for talking ATM's? ATM's have been useable for decades! As long as you know the sequence of buttons to press to get what you want, that means it's accessible? Sorry, that ain't this blind man's definition of accessible. Useable yes. Accessible, not quite. Accessibility, in my unhumble opinion, is a bistable condition--either something is, or it isn't. Degrees of accessibility should never use the word "access", but rather, "use"--as in, how useful or useable is the device, given the fact it's not totally, utterly and completely accessible in every way, shape feature and form? If I am willing to compromise, which I do with my own R-1, and trade lack of total accessibility for reasonable useability, I'd call that an OK trade, but by no means would I call it accessible. I want access to the stuff that's on the LCD display--all of it. Volume levels, battery status, however they display how much memory is left on the card, what bit and sample rates I'm recording or playing back at, ... everything. Until I get that, the machine is quite useable (as long as somebody doesn't steal my cheat-sheet), but not accessible. I can make things happen by presssing buttons I know to press, but there's that whole world of information I absolutely cannot get to about the unit and must rely on memory--mine--to get me through. And what's this about no setup? The thing doesn't exactly come ready to record straight out of the box. Some assembly is definitely required. The flash memory must first be inserted, which you and others pointed out could be problematic if one has not work with such things before. I got lucky. I *have* done a little with putting memory modules into cameras and such like for sighted folks, so the way the card goes into the R-1 was no big deal for me. But I am not everyone, and I fully understand how folks can, and do, have problems. Then there's the fact that, while the thing does come with an A.C. adapter, a pair of batteries thrown in would have been nice, even though we've all heard or found out just how long they last. This is not a major deal either. Then there's the recording format. If I didn't read all the messages on the list and listen to Larry Scutchon's podcast on the R-1, I'd never have known that the default recording format is *not* PCM WAV, which I originally thought it was. You have to go through the menu system and change it to WAV if WAV is what you want. Otherwise, it's 192 bits by 44.1khz MPEG Layere III, a.k.a. MP3. And oh yes, about the included flash card. Before you can make a single recording, the card must be formatted. Something else I wouldn't have known without having listened to Larry's podcast on the subject, or unles I'd read the manual (which I had--Larry's podcast came way later). But knowing these things is what I call going in with one's eyes open--proper preparation prevents poor performance, as they say. If you choose the R-1, Doug, I suspect you'll be quite pleased with it. But everyone making this kind of choice--and let's face it, buy a couple 2- or 4-gig memory cards and you're now talking way serious money--it's good to know all the facts. _______________________________________________ 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] This list is a service of MosenExplosion.com. To see what other lists we offer, visit us on the web at http://www.MosenExplosion.com
