Home Educational Articles Music Technology Audio and Video Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews
Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews PDF Print E-mail
Written by Chad Criswell   

Buying a portable digital audio recorder is a major decision.  The balance between price, features, and quality is a fine line that has many different options to choose from.  There are dozens of different models of portable digital audio recorders, some of which have drastically different sets of features yet sell for roughly the same price.  This easy to read head to head comparison chart and guide to many of the more popular portable digital audio recorders is intended to help potential buyers more easily see these differences and make an educated buying decision.

 

To compare these portable audio recorders with other similar desktop based recorders from other companies please visit our Desktop Digital Recorder Buying Guide

Edirol R-09HR Tascam DR-07 Pocketrak CX Pocketrak 2G Zoom H4n Zoom H2 MicroTrak II
Check Price at Amazon
MEdM Rating
Read Review at MusicEdMagic Read Our Review
of the Edirol R-09.
Read Our Review
of the Tascam DR-07

Read Our Review
of the Pocketrak CX

Read Our Review
of the Pocketrak 2G
Read Our Review
of the Zoom H4n
Read Our Review
of the Zoom H2
Coming Soon
Pocket/Desktop Pocket Pocket Pocket Pocket Pocket Pocket Pocket
Recording channels 2 4 2 2 4 4 2
Multiple Pickup Patterns No No No No Yes, 90/120/360 Yes, 90/120/360 No
Best WAV Recording Formats 24 bit/ 96kHz 24 bit/ 48kHz 16 bit/ 48kHz 16 bit/ 44.1khz 24 bit/ 96kHz 24 bit/ 96 kHz 24 bit/ 96 kHz
Best MP3 Recording Format 320kbps/ 48kHz MP3 320kbps/ 48kHz MP3 320kbps/ 48kHz MP3 128kbps/ 48kHz MP3 320kbps/ 48kHz MP3 320kbps/ 48kHz MP3
Mic setup/coincident pair/etc. side by side side by side coincident pair X/Y side by side coincident pair X/Y coincident pair X/Y
Internal Speaker Yes No Yes Yes Yes No
External Inputs/ Line Level/ Mic Level/ XLR/ Phone Mic/Line Mic/Line Mic/Line Mic/Line Mic/Line/XLR x2/Phone x2 Mic/Line
Phantom Power for External Mics No No No No Yes No
USB Connectivity Yes w/provided cable Yes w/ provided cable Yes w/provided cable Yes/ Integrated Yes w/cable Yes w/cable
Integrated Tuner/Metronome None None No No Tuner/Metronome Tuner/Metronome
Software Included Cakewalk pyro Audio Creator LE None Cubase AI4 Cubase AI4 Cubase LE None
Memory/Type 512MB SD Card 2GB SD Card 2GB Micro SD Card 2GB Internal 1GB SD Card 512MB SD Card
Maximum Memory

2GB SD or 4GB SDHC 2GB 32GB SDHC 32GB SDHC
Windscreen No Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Batteries/Supplied AA x 2 / not provided AA x 2 / provided AA x 1/ rechargable Eneloop high performance battery AAA x 1/ rechargable Eneloop high performance battery AA x 2/ not provided AA x 2/ not provided
External Power Connector/Supplied Yes/ provided Yes/ not supplied No No Yes/ provided Yes/ provided
Plug and Play? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
LCD Backlight Yes/ OLED Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Variable Pitch Control No Yes No No Yes No
Variable Speed Playback Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Included Accessories Wireless remote control included None earbuds, mic stand adaptor, carry bag included soft carry case. mic stand adaptor. earbuds, usb cable included Solid plastic carry case, mic clip adaptor desktop stand, mic clip adaptor,earbuds,stereo Y cable included
Comments
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Jim Frankel  - Managing Director of SoundTree |72.89.224.xxx |2009-06-17 03:08:38
Chad,

I would also strongly recommend the MicroTrack II from M-Audio. They just
dropped the price to $199 (http://store.soundtree.com/maudio-microtrack-ii-m
obile-digital-recorder.html). I personally believe that it is the best handheld
recorder on the market.

Hope you are doing well. Keep up the great work!

Jim
Athan Billias  - Director of Marketing |173.27.214.xxx |2009-10-04 12:47:07
This is a crowded and active market.



Yamaha just dropped the MAP price of the Pocketrak 2G to $149 and the CX to MAP
$249.



BTW, the Pocketrak 2G is a little unique as it is the only one of the products
you reviewed that has an omni directional microphone. An omni directional
microphone means that the mic picks up sound equally in all directions. This is
a good choice for recording marching bands on a field and other situations where
you can't allows place the recorder exactly where you'd liek for a perfect
stereo field recording.



All of the products you reviewed are high quality and eay to use. Which ever you
portable recrder you choose it will be a real benefit to your teaching
activities and ability to collaborate and share recordings with your students.



The beauty of all of these is that they record in a format that can be easily
copied to your computer, emailed to students and then played back on any
computer with a media player like Windows Media Player.
clinton williams |173.27.214.xxx |2009-10-15 23:09:56
I was interested to read your review of the Zoom H4N. I wish to know if it is
sold with Cubase LE from zoom or is that dependent on which stores sell it? I
would like to buy it with this included software. Can you help? thanks.



clinton williams
Rodolfo Vivanco L  - Direct Sound Field Digitall recorder |173.27.214.xxx |2009-11-04 15:31:56
HI, Im a direct Sound Tech, I work with tv and advertising, and I was looking
for a portable solution for audio back up. and I cant decide yet, does anyone
know here how this guys behave with line signal and if the audio file will sync
with the video file perfectly ( heard some Zoom products had problems with hat
issue)
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