Jon.Bryant
Well-known member
Being a techno junky, I finally succumbed and bought the Dodotronics Hi Sound Compact parabola.
The idea is to have a highly portable bit of kit, but with more ‘range’ than the MKE400 and Tentacle Track E, which is my ‘carry everywhere’ solution.
First problem is that the High Sound Compact is stereo whereas small 32bit recorders (such as the Tentacle Track E) are mono. This was easily overcome by a stereo to mono adapter. OK you loose stereo, but I have never really thought stereo parabolas make sense - well at least not for moving birds that you track with the dish.
On a recent trip to Stodmarsh, I found the setup (Hi Sound Compact mounted on a Smallrig pistol grip and recording to a Tentacle Track E) really easy to carry. But I was blown away by the recordings. For starters Bittern recording were loud - this is obviously nothing to do with the parabola as too low frequency, and more to do with the mics being low noise but really sensitive. And when I recorded passerines (Reed, Sedge and Cetti’s Warblers, Reed Buntings, Common Whitethroat, Eurasian Wren etc.), the combo of the dish and mics created a great signal to noise ratio. I think my Telinga would do better, but then it is a lot more cumbersome to carry about. Telinga don’t say a lot about their mics, but I suspect the mic in the Hi Sound is a lot more sensitive - less gain from the dish, but a strong signal from the mic, compared to the Telinga, where the dish is doing a lot more of the ‘work’.
Anyway, for a relatively small bit of kit, I am impressed. I would suggest using a 32bit float recorder. I didn’t do any monitoring, so no headphones and cables to get in the way. I just aimed the dish as best I could. Many recording were hammering the red and would have been badly clipped if it wasn’t a 32bit float recorder.
I will be taking the kit to Qinghai soon, and hopefully will get a few sample recordings that I can use to update this post. Fingers crossed a Sillem’s Rosefinch!
The idea is to have a highly portable bit of kit, but with more ‘range’ than the MKE400 and Tentacle Track E, which is my ‘carry everywhere’ solution.
First problem is that the High Sound Compact is stereo whereas small 32bit recorders (such as the Tentacle Track E) are mono. This was easily overcome by a stereo to mono adapter. OK you loose stereo, but I have never really thought stereo parabolas make sense - well at least not for moving birds that you track with the dish.
On a recent trip to Stodmarsh, I found the setup (Hi Sound Compact mounted on a Smallrig pistol grip and recording to a Tentacle Track E) really easy to carry. But I was blown away by the recordings. For starters Bittern recording were loud - this is obviously nothing to do with the parabola as too low frequency, and more to do with the mics being low noise but really sensitive. And when I recorded passerines (Reed, Sedge and Cetti’s Warblers, Reed Buntings, Common Whitethroat, Eurasian Wren etc.), the combo of the dish and mics created a great signal to noise ratio. I think my Telinga would do better, but then it is a lot more cumbersome to carry about. Telinga don’t say a lot about their mics, but I suspect the mic in the Hi Sound is a lot more sensitive - less gain from the dish, but a strong signal from the mic, compared to the Telinga, where the dish is doing a lot more of the ‘work’.
Anyway, for a relatively small bit of kit, I am impressed. I would suggest using a 32bit float recorder. I didn’t do any monitoring, so no headphones and cables to get in the way. I just aimed the dish as best I could. Many recording were hammering the red and would have been badly clipped if it wasn’t a 32bit float recorder.
I will be taking the kit to Qinghai soon, and hopefully will get a few sample recordings that I can use to update this post. Fingers crossed a Sillem’s Rosefinch!
