Tascam DR-70D - what do you think?
- Thread starter OldCorpse
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focuspulling
Active member
Definitely no. Recording to the camera internally is inferior, especially if you go with the DR-70D's setting for 24-bit audio (no reason not to) which is better than any camera's audio capability. Granted, this is a trade-off from recording audio in sync at the camera with video, which is easier to deal with in post.
I became very impressed with this little recorder form factor. It had it (almost) all just by looking at the pictures. Unfortunately... It seemed just perfect until I realize that:
1 - Tascam didn't provided this recorder with an external power input for standard NP usage!!! Oh boy...
2 - They also didn't solve the annoying "sound clicks" of their D60 potentiometers so messing with levels when recording is going to be a bad thing. This don't even bother me that much since I was planning to feed it from an SD mixer, but...
...The worse feature of all:
3 - Cirrus Logic A/D converters which can be found on those cheap PC soundboards??? Come on... Tascam, you can do better than this!
Everybody knows that sound will be determined by the weakest link in the chain and, with those A/D converters I'm definitely off. I'm still convinced that the smallest and best recorder for the money (to be used with a mixer), is the Nagra Lino. It only has a downside for me and that is it's offside panel to use it in a small sound bag.
1 - Tascam didn't provided this recorder with an external power input for standard NP usage!!! Oh boy...
2 - They also didn't solve the annoying "sound clicks" of their D60 potentiometers so messing with levels when recording is going to be a bad thing. This don't even bother me that much since I was planning to feed it from an SD mixer, but...
...The worse feature of all:
3 - Cirrus Logic A/D converters which can be found on those cheap PC soundboards??? Come on... Tascam, you can do better than this!
Everybody knows that sound will be determined by the weakest link in the chain and, with those A/D converters I'm definitely off. I'm still convinced that the smallest and best recorder for the money (to be used with a mixer), is the Nagra Lino. It only has a downside for me and that is it's offside panel to use it in a small sound bag.
Forgot that and that's a bummer for field work but in the end, when feeding trough a SD mixer line out to nagra/tascam line in, the end result in the two will be dictated by the A/D converters and the nagra price difference will be small considering that.
Darren Levine
Veteran
Have you actually tried the thing, or are you just slinging mud? they did address the sound clicks, i tested for it, and the only time you hear it depending on the input source, is from bottomed out/0, to the first notch. Otherwise it's smooth, no clicks. so where is your info coming from?
And there is a power input, it may be a poor microusb, but it's still there.
Is another reminder necessary that this is a 4 track mixer/recorder for $300? Unless you can show another product in this price range with these features, there's a very thin basis for complaints
Not tested it myself but assisted to it's presentation made by one of the most renowned european sound directors. The sound clicks shows and everybody heard them in the presentation.
4 tracks is a neat feature... If you have 4 great mic pres and a decent A/D converter and sorry but you don't with this one (once again, everybody on that presentation heard the difference between this and other recorders). I know that it's a cheap recorder but in the end is just that: cheap. A Zoom H4 will do the same (with better A/D converters), and it's cheaper.
I know that the form factor is cool and probably many are buying it on it's aspect alone but it's pedigree (HD-P2), is way far ahead. I know. I have one!
Rick R
Veteran
"the end result in the two will be dictated by the A/D converters and the nagra price difference will be small considering that."
- Yes, the A/D converters make a difference. I'd be interested in a DR70 < > Lino A/B test. I'm sure the Lino's converters are not the same as in the original Nagra D. Corners are cut to keep prices low.
- Yes, the A/D converters make a difference. I'd be interested in a DR70 < > Lino A/B test. I'm sure the Lino's converters are not the same as in the original Nagra D. Corners are cut to keep prices low.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Couple of things. First after looking for awhile I couldn't find out who makes Nagra's A/D converters, who knows might even be the same company? Second everybody makes a range of products so it's certainly possible that they make high end converters and low end cheap ones. With out actual spec's on the model used you really can't say much. Dolby noise reduction was used in every cheap tape deck around, and they made noise reduction systems used in feature film mix stages.
The other thing is it's hard to say if there is even an issue. It kind of depends on exactly what you are doing. If you are doing high end nature recording? maybe. Dialog??? maybe you can hear a difference maybe not. Science recordings yes go for it. FX recording? maybe, really depends on what the differences are. BUT you can't use that Nagra as a comparison because it only has unbalanced 1/8" mic ins and that is a killer.
"Ear" tests, especially with a lot of people at a presentation is not close to a decent evaluation. At best it points out that there may be something to look into.
In a good room properly set up doing a carefully calibrated double blind test and you can get some results to point to.
But for film work I doubt a difference if it is really there will actually be a problem. Great sound films have been made with equipment of far lower technical specs than the 70D. How you use it still far out weighs what you use.
The other thing is it's hard to say if there is even an issue. It kind of depends on exactly what you are doing. If you are doing high end nature recording? maybe. Dialog??? maybe you can hear a difference maybe not. Science recordings yes go for it. FX recording? maybe, really depends on what the differences are. BUT you can't use that Nagra as a comparison because it only has unbalanced 1/8" mic ins and that is a killer.
"Ear" tests, especially with a lot of people at a presentation is not close to a decent evaluation. At best it points out that there may be something to look into.
In a good room properly set up doing a carefully calibrated double blind test and you can get some results to point to.
But for film work I doubt a difference if it is really there will actually be a problem. Great sound films have been made with equipment of far lower technical specs than the 70D. How you use it still far out weighs what you use.
I must say I agree with Scott. It all depends on what you are using your gear for. For recording film dialogue, I see no disadvantage to the 70D. Heck, to be honest, I have both the 60D and 70D and despite the supposedly superior preamps in the 70D I honestly can't hear the difference in dialogue recordings using the mics I have between these two, and I ran careful blind tests and even enlisted my wife to help me. Maybe I'm deaf. I don't know about the Zoom H4N A/D converters, but I listened very carefully to comparisons between the 60D and the H6N and if anything the 60D sounded slightly better - now, I assume that the A/D converters in the H6N are not worse than the H4N, so what does that tell me?
Look at the sound equipment used back in the day on major motion pictures - a lot of the "cheapo" stuff today blows it away, yet it was good enough back then. To me, the quality of the 70D recorded sound is absolutely adequate for my purposes. Of course, I don't do nature recordings or scenarios which maybe would push the gear to its limits, and only care about dialogue and maybe some FX sounds, Foley and the like, stuff likely to be useful in video shorts or features. From that point of view, the 70D has other features that are much more important to me - multitracks, XLR inputs, size and so on. For my purposes the 70D absolutely ticks off all the boxes. YMMV.
Look at the sound equipment used back in the day on major motion pictures - a lot of the "cheapo" stuff today blows it away, yet it was good enough back then. To me, the quality of the 70D recorded sound is absolutely adequate for my purposes. Of course, I don't do nature recordings or scenarios which maybe would push the gear to its limits, and only care about dialogue and maybe some FX sounds, Foley and the like, stuff likely to be useful in video shorts or features. From that point of view, the 70D has other features that are much more important to me - multitracks, XLR inputs, size and so on. For my purposes the 70D absolutely ticks off all the boxes. YMMV.
Throwback
Well-known member
Yes the Cirrus Logic CS42L52 is no high-end chip, but it is used in comparable audio equipment: outside Tascam's own use, it is, for example, found in the Sony M10 and I wouldn't have thought anyone would realistically be expecting much better audio performance than this for the modestly-priced DR-70D (its attractions being additional channels, form, xlr balanced inputs etc. etc.). And, of course, there is much more to any such devices than the ad converter and op amp chips: namely the analogue circuitry...
Cheers,
Roland
Cheers,
Roland
focuspulling
Active member
Your credibility is eliminated by saying that the H4 (you probably meant the H4n) has better A/D converters.
Ry hiw bad the noise floor is too.
true that. One of the worst on the market. Legendary how bad the noise floor is too.
true that. One of the worst on the market. Legendary how bad the noise floor is too.
GaryNattrass
Veteran
A to D converters? We are making low budget films here not recording the London Symphony Orchestra with a 100db dynamic range, a $300 recorder will give quite acceptable results in the right hands so just get out there and make some content rather than worrying about the spec of the converters.
Scott is spot on as usual and I have done movies straight into the camera (HPX371) and never worried about what the A to D converter is doing.
P.S if people are hearing noise then is is usually the headphone amp and most A to D noise will not come into play, you probably need $$$$$$ worth of test kit to measure it.
We had tape hiss in the past and even worse dolby A, B or C miss tracks so if you can't record a decent audio track these days you are doing something seriously wrong!
Scott is spot on as usual and I have done movies straight into the camera (HPX371) and never worried about what the A to D converter is doing.
P.S if people are hearing noise then is is usually the headphone amp and most A to D noise will not come into play, you probably need $$$$$$ worth of test kit to measure it.
We had tape hiss in the past and even worse dolby A, B or C miss tracks so if you can't record a decent audio track these days you are doing something seriously wrong!
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If you look into Cirrus data spec you will fin d that this chip is used in Zoom H2 recorders. You will not find any Cirrus specs for Zoom H4 so I assume that they're using an A/D converter from another brand and supposedly (because it's a step up recorder from H2), a better one.
Noise floor comes primarily from bad preamps. A/D converters are secondary in that respect. A/D converters quantitize analogue curves turning them into bits. The better this is made better the sound and - obviously - less noise. But this noise isn't the one introduced by the preamps which is regularly more audible than this. The thing is that Tascam preamps are generally good for the money asked (I assume that those on the 70D are better than Zoom H4n even though they are a few steps lower than the ones used in the HD-p2), but that cheap converter is ruining all in the end!
Besides all that… I've read this thread title as "Tascam DR-70D - What do you think?". Well… I told what I think and I've found some people here who stand behind this product as if they are receiving royalties from Tascam sales. Curiously I have (for many years now), a Tascam HD-P2 which I always stand for against other machines (namely it's cousin counterpart of the decade - Fostex FR2), but my loyalty goes to what I find it's best for me whatever the brand behind it.
I'm not in a "this brand or that brand" quest but again… I've heard the thing working against other machines (namely Zoom H4, Nagra Pico - which is cheaper IIRC - and some other more expensive options from Roland, Sony and a Sound Devices 702 - which served as a benchmark), all serving only as recorders hooked up at the same Sound Devices 302 mixer, and let me tell you what I began to tell in the first post, this recorder is "cheap", no matter what you throw at it.
But… as someone here has mentioned, if it serves your propose go and buy one. This is "what I think"
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Oh well… Why spend 300 bucks in a recorder if I have an iPhone in my pocket, right? Aaton and Schoeps have to take care because every other professional will begin to use Zoom h4's and rode NTG2's to record quality audio from now on…
Don't American citizens have a saying: "You get what you paid for?"
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GaryNattrass
Veteran
Yup I have an i-fone in my pocket and use it all the time with Rode recorder to put down ideas, I also have low cost mics as well as expensive ones and have used just about every single piece of high end kit at work inc $1,000,000 AMS Neve DFC digital consoles with Pro Tools and Audiofiles.
I also still have my minidisc recorder and £200 sony M/S mic that has been used on numerous TV and film projects to capture background sounds and effects.
So does that mean that I have to spend shed loads on kit just to keep up with the flow?
I bought an AMS Neve Logic 3 with 32 track audiofile 15 years ago and paid £82,000 for it, seven years ago I bought another for £5,000 and now it is basically a piece of junk ready for the skip.
It still has the apogee A to D converters but I can basically do the same job with my pro tools rig that cost me less than £2,000 and still get perfectly acceptable results for audio post in TV and film.
They are all tools of the trade at the end of the day and if you put me ten audio soundtracks together you would not be able to tell what mic, pre-amp or even edit and audio post devices were used to get to the final result.
Just like do you sit at home and think wow U2 must have used a top end pre-amp to record that s*%t? It was probably an SM58 and the skill of the engineer rather than what A to D converter was being used.
Not everyone owns a rolls royce but we can all use our cars to get from A to B regardless of what you pay?
There is so much bulls*%t about kit spec these days but I see very little creativity being expressed with it.
P.S have just used a Tascam US- 366 USB interface to record a whole album here in my room whilst on my contract at the BBC, in Glasgow, pre-amps sound great and quiet to me and it all went down to Logic X on my £1300 macbook pro. Mic for vocals etc was a £130 SE X1.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
American's do but you were responding to someone in the UK so...
Your opinions are just that, and you have every right to state them. However you hurt your cause (assuming you want people to take your opinions seriously) when you keep comparing apples to oranges. Recorders that don't take XLR and don't have phantom are not comparable. Even if they have much better A/D converters and I thought that mattered a lot to me they are still not an option. Comparing to a recorder that is many times the price also doesn't work.
Since there is really nothing that really matches, you can kind of compare to two track recorders with some similar features. When you get into the same price range as the 70D you are really left with Zoom and other Tascam recorders. The Tascam are all using similar converters as are (probably) Zoom. So really the big differences are in mic preamp track count and form factor.
My experience is Mic Pre trumps many things and even you say the Tascam mic pres are better than the Zoom.
So for you since you are going in line that isn't as much of a factor. But what might be, is that (at least some) the Tascam recorders have a true line in and I don't believe the Zooms do.
I also have a Mic Pre feeding my recorder so on the one hand the A/D might factor in, but I'm mostly bag work so it's got to work in a bag. Personally I would be more likely to go for a HD-P2 because I like a bit more weight and the larger layout, but having four inputs also has it's pluses so?
Until pretty recently DAT at 48/16 was the "super high end" of film recording. The converters on most of those suckers were probably sloppier than what is in the 70D. I'm not saying it's not a valid point but on a list of "needs" for film recording it's not very high. If your point is that they are so awful that the sound is useless then I think your opinion is not relevant to most folks working in film. If you want to start getting picky about the guts then the clock is more important than the converter. How stable is that sucker? Most portable DAT clocks were less that beautiful.
But it all depends on what you are doing. And ironically it is a bit more of an issue with low budget shows than high budget shows. A lot of low budget shows do hardly any sound post and have VERY few tracks going into the mix. With your tracks that bare one might actually be able to hear some A/D wankyness. THough since the playback venues are likely to be iffy at best you probably won't hear it outside of the studio.
On a big film, or a low budget film with sound post done by someone who has worked on big films, you are going to have a lot of tracks. Typically somewhere between 60 and 200. I'm usually under 100, but part of that is I trained in when over 100 was really hard to do. When you have a lot of tracks making up the final mix quantization noise on individual tracks get lost in the mix. Even at a tiny 20 tracks it's going to get lost.
Heck even on small budget films you are seeing lots of inexpensive wireless systems. The wankyness of the companding is going to be a lot more audible than the A/D issues.
If I had to choose between two recorders that were identical except one had better A/D converters I would jump all over it. But if the choice is between four tracks of XLR in a bag friendly form or a two track 1/8" unbalanced mic in's, in a form that is not bag friendly... The converters would have to be night and day, and even then I couldn't go for the latter, though I would probably go looking for something else.
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naavt, I personally appreciate your expressing your views (and I'm certain others do too) - whether anyone agrees or not with any particular view, it's an interesting discussion. I admit, that the only time I've given A/D converters any thought was in a non-film related setting: when I was putting together my sound system for my musical listening pleasure, I found the A/D converters were not up to snuff, so I got a different piece of gear. However, I have not found this to be an issue in recording dialogue, background effects and such things for film work - but admittedly I am the furthest one from being a sound pro, so take that fwiw.
GaryNattrass
Veteran
I totally agree that any opinion is warmly received but you can record on anything from a cassette machine all the way up to a Aaton system with the best recorder in the world and still create content that people may wish to enjoy.
I think we have never had it so good for technology and the ability to create content so it is down to the creative process to deliver material that people may wish to share and enjoy, otherwise we all may as well stay in our rooms and read the specs and argue over X is better than Y till the cows come home.
I sit in front of this everyday at work but I could not even tell you what converters it has or even the processing involved but it sounds good and clean to me and is almost analogue like running at 48k 24 bit.
I think all of you would be totally shocked at the quality of some of the audio we have to transmit on network news regardless of what hardware it has been recorded on and at times it is about audio recovery here and in post production.
I think we have never had it so good for technology and the ability to create content so it is down to the creative process to deliver material that people may wish to share and enjoy, otherwise we all may as well stay in our rooms and read the specs and argue over X is better than Y till the cows come home.
I sit in front of this everyday at work but I could not even tell you what converters it has or even the processing involved but it sounds good and clean to me and is almost analogue like running at 48k 24 bit.
I think all of you would be totally shocked at the quality of some of the audio we have to transmit on network news regardless of what hardware it has been recorded on and at times it is about audio recovery here and in post production.