Edirol r-44 vs Tascam dr-60d mkII (and possibly Fostex FR-2LE or Marantz 670)

T

Thisquiet

New member
It's my first post here, so hello everyone, nice to meet you (and sorry for inevitable mistakes - english is not my first language).

I'm preparing to buy an external audio recorder for shooting DSLR documentaries and (occasionally) short narratives. I have to be able to use it as a one man crew, although I will usually have someone to help. I don't really need four channels at the moment (though I can imagine a situation where it would be handy). Since my budget is very limited, I have narrowed my choice to:

New Tascam DR-60d MkII
Used Edirol R-44 (same price as Tascam)

and maybe:

Used Fostex FR-2LE (slightly more expensive than Edirol and Tascam)
Used Marantz 670 (roughly the same price as Fostex)

I don't know much about the Marantz. Edirol and Fostex seem to offer equally good sound and I know both were great when first introduced, but today seem a bit dated. I was wondering if Tascam can offer comparable audio quality? Which of these would you recommend?
 
I can't say much about the others, but I've used the Tascam DR-D (the MKII is basically the same) and had wonderful results. There was a thread on it a while back and has overall been viewed very positively by the site's users!
 
We have 6 of the R44's and they are fantastic. As an all-in-one recorder, it's easy to use and the results are great. I've used it with a Schoeps CMC5/MK41, Oktava MK012, Sennheiser MKH-416, Sennheiser ME-66, and a bunch of other mics.
 
I would do some research, starting by searching this list, on the R-44. I looked at them when they first came out and they had a number of issues that killed them for me but I can't remember exactly what. I have an impression they had really dodgy battery life. I posted a long time back the specifics, maybe they apply to you maybe not?

THe DR-60II is supposed to be pretty nice. I have the DR-40 and like it quite a bit for what I do with it, wild FX recordings. As with all the really small recorders they get a bit problematic for production because of size. But it should work well and have better or as good as mic preamps as any of the ones you list and newer/ better A/D converters.

I personally didn't like the FR-2Le, but many love it. THe mic pres are a bit weak, the metering is not great ... Again I have posted my issues a long while back. But again some love it so YMMV.

The Marantz I would discourage you from. It's a MUCH better size for in the bag work BUT it is older and fairly noisy. I have the 671 which is a pretty big improvement, but I would only recommend it with reservations. I REALLY like using my 671, but Marantz makes it near impossible to update the firmware (you would have to send the unit to California) and gives no details about what the current firmware is or what it fixes. SO you would need to find that out on the unit before you buy it and then do research to find out if that firmware is the latest and if it has any big issues. When I bought the 671 (actually I had it on demo, Thank you local stores) it had an older firmware, when I brought it back to the store they discovered ALL of the units in stock were out of date. They were a bit peeved at Marantz since the firmware had a couple of serious issues that had been fixed by an update and nobody had sent out a notice to service departments. They swapped all of their units out for newer ones and gave me one of those, which I bought.

I like it but you are very much on your own with Marantz. Tascam on the other hand has been GREAT with updates and very open about issues and fixes with their gear for a long time. I have had a fair amount of Tascam gear over the years and I can't think of a single issue they did not offer a free fix for.

If you are looking at a 670 though you should probably also look at the Tascam DR-70
 
I wouldn't recommend the Marantz either. I still have one and have mine permanently connected to a phone hybrid to record phone tape. But both the 670 and 671 have file size limitations unless you upgrade the firmware. Supposedly, Marantz was just sending the firmware through email to customers. But I don't think they're doing that anymore. They used to make you send that to them to change as Noiz2 said. The 670 doesn't have the quietest pre's unless you used a hot mic. Then it wasn't bad. Of course, if you can find one with the Oade Brothers pre upgrade, that might be worth considering.
 
File size limits are due to the FAT32 card format. That is true with a lot of recorders. I'm pretty sure that the 671 will auto roll over like the Tascam et all and so you effectively can record till the card is full, but they will be in 2 gig chunks. Since I have never recorded over two hours continuously with the 671 it's never been an issue.

Card size though is smaller than newer recorders. If you have really old firmware you were limited to under 4 gig cards, the firmware that I have ups that to 16 I think. CF cards though aren't commonly found really large. But again this is very rarely an issue since you are probably going to change batteries more often and swapping a card then is very easy.

The Pre's on the 671 seem to be pretty decent, but for a number of reasons I'm almost always using a MixPre as the front end and going in line.
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the answers. Just to let you know - I've missed the opportunity on R-44 and after thinking it all through I went with a Tascam DR-70d and never looked back. I love it. It sounds great, it's packed with features and at this price point it's a real steal. I use it with 2x Shure MX185s and the sound quality is just amazing :).
 
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