Is the DR-100 a better match to the NTG-2 than the H4n?

T

Tobias F

Member
Hello,
I've been trying to find a solution to a problem I have for a long time, and not come to any conclusion. In 2007 I had an HDV camera, and with that made some decent recordings using the Rode NTG-2 that I got at the time. More recently I got rid of the HDV rig, and moved to a vDSLR, and from what I read, ended up purchasing a Zoom H4n to record audio with. This setup however presented some harsh audio issues, as it does a fine job with its internal mics, but I have got very high noise ratios using my NTG-2 and an SM-58. I have tried using the Phantom, the internal battery on the NTG-2, internal pads and compressors and preamps, and even one suggestion to use an XLR to 1/4" jack cable, none of which have given me reasonable recordings.

I have, thus, considered getting a preamp, or an external phantom unit, but don't fancy the expense and need for yet another battery operated device to add to the collection. and weight to carry about.

According to some research that I made, the issue between the NTG-2 and the H4n is to do with the output/input impedence, which is 250 Ohm on the NTG-2 (300 Ohm for the SM-58) and accordingly 1 kOhm (balanced) input impedence on the H4n. This, it appears, is an incurable issue.

Or am I wrong? can this be cured? My idiotic logic would assume that the lower impedence of the mic would be providing too high a signal for the input, and thus peak. But this is not the case, and I have not read up on that technical side of things in a long time.

So I am wondering whether I should sell my H4n and replace it with a Tascam DR-100 which, I hear, is a slightly better unit than the Zoom. However, the Tascam website does not even hint what its XLR input impedence is.

So the question remains whether it would be worth my selling the H4n, and probably then having to invest an additional £130 to get the DR-100, or would I be better off getting a different shotgun mic, or a preamp with that additional investment?

Any help will be greatly appreciated, and when I find a conclusion, and test it, I shall post a decent blog to try and provide an answer to others like me.

Thanks,
Tobias
 
Hey Toblas,

Of course you would be better upgrading your mic and pres but how much is that going to set you back? 1000+ minimum? I personally never have/never will go directly into my DR-100 or any low cost recorder without using external pres. It is incredible how much a good pre will benefit the quality of your recording. Before I had my 302 I used to bring my studio pres with me.

I had always found that the H4n was noisier than the Dr-100. Though I find the onboards on the DR-100 to be weak, especially the omni mics. The NTG2 + H4n combo works for a lot of people as a low cost setup without this issue. It's hard to diagnose a problem without hearing a sample but I find the NTG2 to be relatively quiet. Also the 58 is another quiet mic. So maybe post a video or sample and you will get some more direct solutions.
 
Hi Mitch,
thanks for responding so quickly.
The file size limit for attachments is a bit paltry for audio, so the clip is rather small, but gives an idea of the noise to peak level. This was recorded last year indoors, as a narration. The channel that has slightly higher volume is the NTG-2, and I think the other channel was the SM-58. I can't actually remember what settings were used, though I think I had a lowcut on it to eliminate street noise, and the gain was quite high to get the vocal peaks as useable as possible. What I found was that by the time I had given it enough gain, in post, to make it work with the video, the noise level was really irritating, but I had to work with it, as we hadn't the time to find a studio, nor the budget.

So maybe the other people using the NTG-2 and H4n are not as picky as I, or possibly they are working with a soundtrack that would cover the noise. As a narration, here, there was no added background to help disguise the noise floor.

So you think that the Tascam would have the same issues. But as a device is it much better? I really do not like the battery life, nor the interface of the Zoom.

I have pondered devices such as the ART preamps, as I only need one channel, but I have no idea how suitable they might be, nor how happy they will be running from a battery. I assume that a valve uses more power than a transistor. Also the ART MP weighs 700g, which is a bit of a hefty addition.

As you say, getting a preamp like yours, or a Sennheiser shotgun are just prohibitive when I am not making enough money from the work, though at present the audio is a barrier and as such is worthy of some investment, so I need to figure out whether I can improve my sound quality for £150 or therein. and it is rather daunting when, back in the day of the Sony HDV cam with an onboard soundcard, I could get 300 minutes of recording time with my 48v phantom and perfect audio levels, just using the NTG-2.

Thanks,
Tobias

View attachment test.zip
 
Hey Toblas,

That's just hiss from the H4n. If you have a project already you need to clean you can most likely remove that sound. You need to record at a lower level and raise it in post. The hiss is just from raising the level too much and if you do this with any pre you will eventually hear that. Again, a decent pre amp will allow you to raise the level their and prevent this from happening.

Got to love the 1 second file. A womans, a womans, a womans, womans.

Hope this helps.
 
Tobias F said:
...
According to some research that I made, the issue between the NTG-2 and the H4n is to do with the output/input impedence, which is 250 Ohm on the NTG-2 (300 Ohm for the SM-58) and accordingly 1 kOhm (balanced) input impedence on the H4n. This, it appears, is an incurable issue.

Or am I wrong? can this be cured? My idiotic logic would assume that the lower impedence of the mic would be providing too high a signal for the input, and thus peak. But this is not the case, and I have not read up on that technical side of things in a long time.
Click to expand...

I don't see any issue with the impedances. The device sending the signal (the mic) needs to have a lower impedance than the device receiving the signal (the recorder). Your mic output is 250 ohm while the recorder input impedance is 1 kilohm. Compare that to the SD 302 mixer with an input impedance of 2.5 kilohm or the SD 442 with an impedance of 2kilohm. They're all in the same general ballpark. SD states their mixer input's are intended to be used with mics with <600ohm impedance, again the same general ballpark as the Rode. So the 250 ohm mic going to a 1 kilohm input is not likely to be an issue. The Zoom specs claim a signal range of -42dBm to -10dBm on the XLR input. The Rode mic has a rated output of -36dBm at 94dBSPL. That's not a lot higher signal than the minimum usable input signal for the Zoom's preamp and it take a pretty high sound level to get it up to that. I think it's simply a matter of the Zoom preamp's lacking enough gain and being free enough from noise to be usable with many professional mics.
 
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Mitch, I am glad that you think it was ok. I sweated over that for days. with no added background, just as a dry voice, I could hear the hiss like some witch glaring over my shoulder. But aye, the gain was really high, and distance between mouth and mic was probably a couple of feet, just enough to avoid popping.

Steve, I am glad to know that previous readings were erroneous.

Thus... I have raked around and finally found the input info for the Tascam DR-100:

XLR MIC IN (L, R) inputs Connectors: XLR-3-32equivalent (balanced) Input impedance: 1.2 kΩ ≠ GAIN HIGH setting
Standard input level: -58 dBu
Maximum input level: -42 dBu
≠ GAIN MID setting
Standard input level: -36 dBu
Maximum input level: -20 dBu
≠ GAIN LOW setting Standard input level: -14 dBu
Maximum input level: +2 dBu

which would suggest that the Tascam would work well with the NTG-2 out of the box, at MID gain, correct? This amusingly also tells me that the gain cannot be set independently for the two input channels.

I still swither over the option of adding a preamp to the rig, however this offers high end and low end, and seemingly little between an ART MP and Mitch's 302. At this point it would be a better investment to go for an Edirol R-44, I assume (but this is outwith my budget). I still wonder if the ART MP would even work for this purpose, portably.

Thanks again for your help,
Tobias
 
Tobias F said:
Mitch, I am glad that you think it was ok. I sweated over that for days. with no added background, just as a dry voice, I could hear the hiss like some witch glaring over my shoulder. But aye, the gain was really high, and distance between mouth and mic was probably a couple of feet, just enough to avoid popping.

Steve, I am glad to know that previous readings were erroneous.

Thus... I have raked around and finally found the input info for the Tascam DR-100:

XLR MIC IN (L, R) inputs Connectors: XLR-3-32equivalent (balanced) Input impedance: 1.2 kΩ ≠ GAIN HIGH setting
Standard input level: -58 dBu
Maximum input level: -42 dBu
≠ GAIN MID setting
Standard input level: -36 dBu
Maximum input level: -20 dBu
≠ GAIN LOW setting Standard input level: -14 dBu
Maximum input level: +2 dBu

which would suggest that the Tascam would work well with the NTG-2 out of the box, at MID gain, correct? This amusingly also tells me that the gain cannot be set independently for the two input channels.

I still swither over the option of adding a preamp to the rig, however this offers high end and low end, and seemingly little between an ART MP and Mitch's 302. At this point it would be a better investment to go for an Edirol R-44, I assume (but this is outwith my budget). I still wonder if the ART MP would even work for this purpose, portably.

Thanks again for your help,
Tobias
Click to expand...

II have always wondered about the art preamp. Here is a video clip. http://www.dslrfilmnoob.com/2011/05/31/art-usb-dual-preamp-video-review/


 
Tobias F said:
I still swither over the option of adding a preamp to the rig, however this offers high end and low end, and seemingly little between an ART MP and Mitch's 302.
Click to expand...

Check out the Sound devices MM1. It has a mic pre with the same quality of the SD mixers, as well as great monitor control. Also it is small and above the ART MP in price but far below the 302 or MIX PRE D.

I know a indie video guy that uses the exact same setup as you. He wanted improvement so he got a beechtech. He decided it wasn't good enough so he bought a ART MP. After not being satisfied with this item either he now hires a sound guy and has no issues :)

This is not the moral of the story haha. Down X amount of dollars for nothing, it's best to put in a couple hundred bucks more and have something that will last you pretty much forever.
 
It is unfortunate the the sound quality of that Art USB Dual seems to not be great at all, but more frustrating than anything is the fact that there appear to be no physical shops that stock it nor the Tascam, making it hard for me to go and try one or the other to see if I can get an arrangement which I am pleased with. Unfortunately I can't afford the Sound Devices gear, and I think that for the money my NTG-2 is worth sticking with, as the price jump to a better mic is prohibitive at present.
 
Once you get past 50-60% on the recording levels of most consumer recorders, you are adding noise, hence the necessity of a preamp like the MixPre-D or anything from Sound Devices. One issue I think people are having with the NTG-2 being too quiet with the DR-100 / H4N (The DR-100 is better by the way) is that they try to save batteries on the recorder by using the NTG-2 with it's own battery. That's a mistake. When running on battery power, the NTG-2 is 6db less sensitive, which is effectively half the volume as running on Phantom power. So I think this is where a lot of the complaints come from. So if you can't buy the proper tools for the job (a real preamp) then at least get a Phantom power supply to put in-line, and avoid recording beyond 60%. Record at 24 bit too, for more headroom and less noise. Then you will have the most latitude to boost the volume in post. It may help to to grab a little headphone booster so you can hear better, and not feel the need to raise the recording level just so you can hear.

Fiio
http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Headphone-Amplifier-Booster-Control/dp/B004BO7N8S
 
Hi Chad,
my experience with using internal phantom from my H4n is that it gives me a battery life of around 20' with fresh alkalines, and I also recall it being noisier than running off the camera's battery, so from my tests the sound to noise ratio was better running off the NTG-2's battery than the H4n's phantom.

As for the headphone amp, I generally try to set the recording levels by meter, rather than by how loud I hear the subject. Again, from memory (as I have not had to work with voice much over the past year) the clip sampled above came into Final Cut peaking around -24dB, which is a fine level to mix from if I have loud peaks, but normalising it for output was a nightmare as the sound floor was then sitting over the -20dB mark.

Anyway, I shall see if I can find a DR-100 in an actual shop, and have a gander.
 
Hi Tobias

I don't understand. "20' " means "Twenty feet". Are you saying you got 20 minutes? That's not normal. It should be more like 2 hours running phantom off the H4N. Anyway, I suggested getting an in-line phantom supply so you don't have to use either the NTG-2 battery, or the Recorder battery - if you refuse to get a preamp. But I mostly suggested that you need to use a preamp. A preamp is the proper tool for the job. Also, I didn't suggest the purpose of a headphone amp is to set levels. Of course use the meters, but don't go past 60% level, which will keep the crappy H4N pre noise down. The purpose of the headphone amp is so you can still hear everything clearly after you turn down your levels to 50%-60%. You do monitor the whole time don't you? You need to have that monitoring level up so you can hear small nuances like slight wind, or other people making sound in the background. You must hear everything to save headaches later.
 
Hi Chad,
sorry, I thought that the apostrophes were international standards: we use 02:20:25 as a timecode, but for the duration of a clip it would be 02 20' 25". But yes, I haven't used the H4n's phantom power since the first time I took it out to record a gig, last year. And when I was doing simple voice recordings I was indoors, so the internal headphone amp was sufficient.

I guess I am kind of stuck trying to make remnants from a previous setup work for me now that I am using a vDSLR with useless onboard audio. The NTG-2 was bought when I had a Sony HDV camera with XLR inputs, and with that I never had an issue, and from my reading I had wrongly assumed that the H4n would have replaced this gap.

Looking at what is available, or what I can find available, I have no actually found a battery-powered phantom supply on its own. I know that Rode has a passive preamp designed to bring the NTG-2's output up, however this does not seem to be distributed in Europe for some reason. The problem remains that at present my setup is crippled, as I am unable to record decent audio, and because of this it is also hard to allocate a budget to gear that is unable to generate income. Hence my desire to keep costs to a minimum until I can afford a full upgrade.

The DR-100's specs suggest that its preamp switches should have the right dB floor for the NTG-2 to perform well, but it seems that there are no physical shops who stock the recorder for me to be able to verify this. And if this were the case, presumably I would be lighter with the NT-2.

The ART USB Dual preamp appears to be the only preamp under £300 UKP to have what I would need, but its performance may be really poor, and again the local shops don't hold it in stock.

Either way, upgrading to the DR-100 or adding the ART USB Dual would cost about the same, at present, and I have no idea which might be a better choice.
 
Don't waste your time with the ART! I am sure it will be noisy crap. You really just need 700.00 to buy a MixPre-D, or 385.00 to get the one channel SD thing. Is it the MM-1? You just need some clean gain, and ART isn't the answer. Even the JuicedLink stuff will give you 16db of gain - but again that's 300.00 for their cheapest preamp that provides power. But the Sound Devices stuff gives 60db of clean gain - 60DB!!!. The MM-1 is 385.00 - which is a lot I know, but you are about to drop 300.00 on a new recorder. That is absolutely not necessary with a good Preamp. So for 85 bucks more than your imagined budget you will have STELLAR AUDIO. Trust me. You will be able to turn the H4N down to 20-30% and have NO NOISE when using the MM1

Listen to this guys test on his 60D - gong in straight:

And maybe you can find a used MM1 somewhere? Here it is on B&H. Read the reviews. This will be the best possible solution to your woes, and for not much more than you already have budgeted. Read the reviews.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=292989&Q=&is=REG&A=details
 
Hi Chad,
that does sound rather good indeed. My pondering the DR-100, however, would have involved selling the H4n. One wonders what is inside the MM-1. As with most of these products, it is probably a handful of standard components, and it makes me wonder whether I should go back to my original plan of building a circuit. But I also know that this is an idiotic plan.
 
I agree with Chad, an MM1 will benefit your setup the most. The headphone amp was suggested because the H4n only sounds ok when recorded at low levels. The amp will give you the boost you need to hear properly.
 
Tobias F said:
One wonders what is inside the MM-1. As with most of these products, it is probably a handful of standard components, and it makes me wonder whether I should go back to my original plan of building a circuit.
Click to expand...

What are "most of these products"?

If you could put those "handful of standard components" together and label the final result "NN-1" or "MM-2" or whatever you prefer, I'm pretty sure you could sell it for a fraction of the price of MM-1 anywhere SD trademark is no issue. Personally I'm unaware of any knock off of MM-1 or MixPre-D. You could be the first to jump in and make some money?
 
Yes you can plug into the MM-1 with your headphones and hear everything. Another thing to consider: The MixPre-D for 750.00 replaced the original MixPre that went for 665.00. The MixPre is much sweeter (than the MM-1), as it has level meters, limiters, you can plug your camera's headphone into the MixPre so you can hear what your camera hears, you can calibrate your level with the camera using the Tone Generator, for clip proof recording. And of course you get 2 channels. I couldn't find one on ebay, but I bet a MixPre can be found for a reasonable price. People are selling them to get the MixPre-D. It may be too much for you, but it would be a very useful investment. You'll need an attenuating pad cable for both the MixPre or MM-1 if you plan on going into the camera straight, but there are line level inputs on the H4N. Both of these mixers put out a LINE level signal. A DSLR or consumer camera usually only take MIC level signal - hence the pad cable. Anyway you may find a cheap MixPre or even an MM-1 used on the market area of this forum or another audio-for-video forum. Hey if you want to build something - go for it, but SD put a lot of work into these things, and I feel you tinkering around will be an attempt at reinventing the wheel, only with no budget to make it work well.

Just set a goal and save some money. It's one of the most important audio investments, so don't cheap out. It's more expensive to buy crap, then have to replace it later, and all the while your audio suffers. Just get the thing you need - a preamp - and you're done with that. It will improve everything you do with audio from now on. It's just that you made a mistake by not budgeting enough in the first place, or not knowing that a preamp was the key. With a good preamp like SD, you can get by with a Zoom H1 even (though I wouldn't do that). The recorder is not too important. The preamp and the mic are your key pieces. The NTG-2 will get you by until you can upgrade down the line.
 
Chadfish said:
Just get the thing you need - a preamp - and you're done with that.... The recorder is not too important. The preamp and the mic are your key pieces. The NTG-2 will get you by until you can upgrade down the line.
Click to expand...

+1000
 
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