I have the 60d and a friend has the 680. Overall he was impressed with how decent the 60d is. He expected it to be like the dr40 and 100 but was surprised and liked the upgraded pre's. I'm hoping to do a comparison between the two units and then add an sd in front of it to compare. In an ideal situation with the mic close enough most units will put out decent enough sound.
Upgrade to Tascam DR-680
- Thread starter scorsesefan
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starcentral
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That could definitely be an indication a newer model is around the corner, but hard to say.
I thinking real hard to get the DR-680, especially now that Sony added firmware to the F5/F55 so that my F55 will take AES digital input from something like a 422... but I've been reading that an AES input should be able to take the output of the S/PDIF on the DR-680 so would prefer to do away with another piece of gear like the 422 if I can. Can anyone verify that AES can take S/PDIF? For more controlled shooting situations I'd rather have less gear and if possible (even though a little hard on the DR-680) ride levels on the DR-680 if needed.
But as I mentioned, with Sony just literally releasing AES inputs on the F5/F55 this week it got me thinking to a cheaper "digital" recording solution. What if I wanted to put just a simple mixer in-between my mic and the camera using AES? I think a whole slew of low cost & high quality alternatives might have just opened up. For example, many audio interface devices meant to take a mic into a computer also offer digital outputs on them. So conceivably for $99-$199 you can put one of these devices between one or two mics, mix, and send to the camera. Tascam, M-Audio and a few others make these devices. Most only take power over USB however but surely something easy can be rigged up to power it over USB connector.
Coincidentally I just bought a Audio 6 audio interface / midi interface from Native Instruments for $199 and it does accept XLR and can convert to digital out. Perhaps I need to test it out.
I thinking real hard to get the DR-680, especially now that Sony added firmware to the F5/F55 so that my F55 will take AES digital input from something like a 422... but I've been reading that an AES input should be able to take the output of the S/PDIF on the DR-680 so would prefer to do away with another piece of gear like the 422 if I can. Can anyone verify that AES can take S/PDIF? For more controlled shooting situations I'd rather have less gear and if possible (even though a little hard on the DR-680) ride levels on the DR-680 if needed.
But as I mentioned, with Sony just literally releasing AES inputs on the F5/F55 this week it got me thinking to a cheaper "digital" recording solution. What if I wanted to put just a simple mixer in-between my mic and the camera using AES? I think a whole slew of low cost & high quality alternatives might have just opened up. For example, many audio interface devices meant to take a mic into a computer also offer digital outputs on them. So conceivably for $99-$199 you can put one of these devices between one or two mics, mix, and send to the camera. Tascam, M-Audio and a few others make these devices. Most only take power over USB however but surely something easy can be rigged up to power it over USB connector.
Coincidentally I just bought a Audio 6 audio interface / midi interface from Native Instruments for $199 and it does accept XLR and can convert to digital out. Perhaps I need to test it out.
