griffin said:
So you reckon that could be the way to go then ?
If it's the way to go depends how much you save going with the cheaper Telinga handle to dent the extra hit you're taking on the recorder. And how much back-compatibility with your MD as backup is valued.
The 660 with Pro6 handle gives you the weight of a bag of sugar to haul into the field, four-hour recording life on one set of 4 batteries, better connectors, and some question mark on the noise performance which needs testing. Plus you need the adapter box to go with your MD, though you can probably do without that to start with.
The Nagra with Pro5 is lightweight, ten-hour recording life on one set of two batteries, pre-roll recording buffer, noise performance unknown and needs testing, and there is the battery in the Pro5 to potentially let you down, though you can always use a 9V PP9 to get round that. You have MD compatibility from the off.
I haven't managed to trash the 3.5mm jack on the Telinga yet, and it a fairly straightforward resoldering job if I do. It is a rightangle connector so less likely to knacker the socket on the recorder.
The one unanswered question with all of these sub-£1000 CF recorders is what the noise of the input stages is like. CF recorders of this level like the Marantz 660 and this Nagra are designed for professional interviewers, court recorders and the like, who are recording loud humans speaking in public at normal ranges of a couple of metres to 10m using standard low-cost mikes. Things like the Edirol R1 and R09 are aimed at the musician, again no shortage of sound level there.
You and I are after birds in a tree, and we consider a range of 10m to be relatively close. We will be dealing with low signal levels - lower than loud humans. We've helped by the fact that the Telinga mike in particular has a very high sensitivity, so you get more electrical signal out of it for a given sound in front than which the sort of mikes the interviewers and court recordists and musicians use. So if wildlife recordists can use the 660, I would expect the Nagra to be no noisier.
I'm being vague here as I have no personal experience of using CF recorders, and I haven't seen any reviews by wildife recordists using anything sub £1000 which worries me. The one positive report is Lachlustre, using a Marantz 660 with a sensitive ME 67 mic and a target species the loud and reasonably approachable chaffinch. His signal levels will be higher than mine, as a result of his target species and probably his target closeness.
I did initially consider the Edirol until I saw the results of Rob Danielson's tests on naturerecordists, which indicated some issues - on the Marantz PMD660 the input stages were slightly noisy for wildlife recording, and the Edirol had insufficient gain for wildlife recording - you wouldn't be able to lift the weak signals up enough to reach peak level before you ran out of range on the record level gain.
This is part of the reason I still use MD despite its revolting ergonomics (the other being I spent my budget on mics for this year - I expect CF recorders to get better and cheaper with time but mikes seem to slowly creep up in price over the years with no radical technology advances). I admit I am sorely tempted to investigate the Nagra for use with the Telinga, but I can't
guarantee it has a low enough mic input noise level to not compromise the Telinga. I would like to be able to test it in the field or get a decent answer to two questions -
what is the minimum microphone signal level needed to get a full-scale recording (for my Minidisc this is 400uV or -66dBu)
and what is the corresponding noise level (I measured this at at about 1.2uV or -116dBu)
I wouldn't expect the Nagra to be worse than the PMD660, and I really would hope it to be better than MD, though that is purely gong on the company's previous record of professional products which is no way to really assess equipment. I know that the Marantz 660 is no good to me, even though it offers phantom power, as according to Rob's tests it would compromise the noise performance of my MKH30/40 microphones. I would
have to use an outboard preamplifier to get round that, and then I might as well stick with MD.
If you can get the Nagra on a trial basis you can test this easily. Take your mic out somewhere very quiet on a day when the wind is down. Set the replay gain set fairly high - about 3/4. Adjust record gain on the recorder so you can hear the ambient noise through headphones - it should be somewhere near flat out. Turn the mic off (noting you'll get a pretty big thump in the phones!). The noise level should noticeably drop. If it doesn't then you need a better recorder or an external preamplifier (plus cables, battery, weight - it's something you want to avoid).
On MD using the Telinga with Pro5 that condition is easily satisfied, and using the Sennheaiser MKH30/40 with outboard phantom power unit that is
just satisifed. I'd hate to spring for a mid-range CF recorder and find that it isn't. So I do feel for your dilemma. If the noise question were resolved, for me the obvious choice would be the Nagra - I already have the Pro5 handle to match.