Zoom H2 Recorder Review   August 31, 2007

"I'm also trying to find out if the external mic input issues can be bypassed by adding an external 1.8 in preamp like"

Well it has a line in. Am I not understanding your question? Just record mic> preamp > preamp line-out> line-in of H2. Shouldn't that work just fine?

Nicely done. I was impressed with the stereo imaging as you walked in and out of the house, made a cup of water(that is what is sounded like)

I'm still not able to find demos of the H2, in all its polar positions for live music. However, I thought it complimented your spoken voice but I"m interested in the unit for document music performance and rehearsal.

I'm also trying to find out if the external mic input issues can be bypassed by adding an external 1.8 in preamp like

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-PREAMP-11

At last, a sensible review of the H2, really addressing the issues and allowing silence to be heard! Very many thanks.

Commenting as I listen -

You have made a fair bit of comment about not being able to hear what you change due to the menus not being available in record mode. If you turn on the continuous monitoring mode (referred to in the manual) doesn't that solve the problem?

The buttons need to be low noise else you'll record the sound of them being pressed, surely? Eg when dropping markers.

According to Sweetwater, the mics in the H2 are actually the same as in the H4. Except the "2" has 4 and the "4" has 2...

It does sound like there's a fair bit of button pushing required to change formats, but unlike the FR2-LE, at least you don't have to format the whole card for a given format! I suspect most users will tend to stick to a particular format rather than changing frequently.

Another user said that autorecord was a one-shot thing, not repeatedly - you seemed to find that it would start and stop repeatedly - any rethink on that?

Some of the processing (eg normalise or mix to mono or split) has been said to take a very long time. Don't know whether you've hit that problem yet (though most people would use a PC for that sort of thing).

The volume control (1 - 127) is apparently post AD conversion - in other words, it's just doing what you could do with level increase in post-processing. A bit like digital zoom in a camera - apparently at 100 you are getting the unprocessed sound. Control of level going into the A to D converter is believed to be just the three-position mic sensitivity. Not necessarily a real problem.

The manual is now downloadable from the Zoom site so I don't think you need to talk through the menu details in another podcast (but I'm probably missing the point of podcasts...!)

There's been something of a row on another site over the level of hiss from the external mic socket. I don't hear any great problem but if you did something like the music test you did in this podcast, with the 1 - 127 control at 100 and an appropriate mic sensitivity selected, using an external mic of your choice, followed by say ten seconds of recorded silence to hear the hiss if any, that would be of great interest to many people I'm sure.

Many thanks again.