so i just recently got my zoom H4n. i chose that from thomann's list cos compared to the other ones on the market this one came with a power source, adapter for mike stand, pop shield, and particularly in thomanns deal you could choose a bigger memorycard - and it was cheaper than with the normal 2gb?!?! so the tascam thing would have been cheaper, but no power adapter included.. or the other zoom, but no 4trak option.. in the end i thought "fuck dis crap" and just went for this one. after 13 years of minidisks, external mikes, power adapters, unreliable recordings (having it on rec, then play stop, md writes the table of contents, then -- ta daa -- "blank disk" aaarrrgghh wtf) i cant believe i didnt switch earlier.
still havent really gotten used to owning one. forgetting it at home, or forgetting i have it recording somewhere in the room.
at 1st i was shocked cos i had good headphones on and walked around recording all kindsa test stuff... thru headphones i got lots of hiss and shit. i thought what a crapp. then i transfered them to computer, played back on genelecs -- almost fell on my ass. top quality mikes in such small capsules. no hiss. great separation. m/s option. looking through the manual it has too many options that i will probably never use. but who knows...
recorded recent noise gigs in helsinki at the merch table ca 6 or 7m away from amps at lowest input level. no clipping, nice separation, too bad some people were standing in front of it, moving around... high ends come and go... so not really the machine's fault, but yeah!!
so far only complaint is that with this 8gb card it takes 17-18 seconds to boot, so not a quick lightning starter. but quite a revelation, why did i wait so long. not the cheapest but for a reason!!
