I'm a journalist who does interviews. I don't record "voice," much less music. I've used Sony's EV500 mono tape recorder--the high-end standard for print journalists--for over 20 years. My colleagues thought it was overkill to switch to stereo. When I showed them my new Sony PCM-10 (purchased in October 2009), they thought it was pretty cool, but when I told them the price, they thought it was too expensive (journalists are congenitally cheap; goes with the salary).
The PCM-10 lets you record in 10 modes, including uncompressed LPCM and compressed MP3, so we did a test recording (that is, an interview) in the highest-quality stereo mode: LPCM 96kHz/24 bit. Well! Let me tell you: Eyebrows arched. The sound was spectacular. One guy grumped--beforehand--that he didn't need interviewees to sound like Maria Callas. Mono was good enough. Then I played it back. He listened. He stroked his chin. "How much did you say that was?" he asked. Because, if you listen to a lot of recorded sound, you can clearly hear the difference.
The bottom line is this: If you record regularly--and seriously--whether it's rock concerts, garage bands, opera stars, birdsong, or interviewees, you want the best sound you can get. The PCM-10 delivers it.
There are many other things to like about this new Sony unit. It has a (mostly) aluminum case. I don't know about you, but I just hate cheap plastic cases. It's about the size of a deck of playing cards. The buttons and menus are so intuitive, I figured everything out without once cracking the manual (which, incidentally, is fairly well-written as these things go). The buttons and switches on the device are intelligently laid out and a cinch to master. And believe me, I'm no genius when it comes to this sort of thing.
The PCM-10 comes with a pair of excellent built-in omnidirectional mics. I also tested it with a Sony ECM-MS907 stereo cardioid mike and a Sound Professionals SP-BMC13 Two Channel, Boundary Style, High-Sensitivity Conference Mic, which I use when a group of interviewees are seated in a living room, at a long conference table, or a classroom. I gotta tell you: transcribing recordings of interviews has got to be the world's most tedious enterprise, but when the sound is this crystal clear, it's a lot less tedious, and far fewer sounds get smudged, which would otherwise require lots of replaying to figure out what was said. Since I use a portable rig, I find the PCM-10's powered mic jack an important feature.
Oh, and the display--black and white LCD, not color--contains all the information you need, including the all-important battery status indicator (the unit runs on two AAs for about 15 hours at 96kHz/24 bit, the highest-quality setting, and over 40 hours on a compressed MP3 setting, which is pretty darn good). Uploading sound files to a PC via the USB port is a cinch.
And yet there are some design peculiarities with this otherwise splendid unit. The case is described by Sony as aluminum. Well, sort of. The faceplate feels like aluminum, but the sides and back feel like plastic. The battery lid is definitely plastic, and the little lid that covers the slots for removable media--Sony Memory Sticks or SD Micro flash cards (up to 16 GB)--is not only plastic but incredibly flimsy, very easy to snap off. Is it really such a design challenge to design a lid that is sturdy and not apt to break? I guess it is.
But let's keep things in perspective. At this price point, the PCM-10 blows the competition away (and competing models are not any better-made, although that is not a reason to let Sony off the hook). The unit admirably does what it was designed to do: produce beautiful, portable, professional-quality recordings. And, except for the cheap battery and removable media lids, the PCM-10 is a class act.
0 comments:
Post a Comment