Marantz PMD620 Handheld SD MP3/WAV Recorder Reviews
I recently purchased the Marantz PMD620 as a podcasting recorder as well as an accompany audio source for my camcorder recording. There are a fair number of reviews on portable recorders out there, each with significant bias towards one brand or another, and I researched all of these before deciding on the Marantz. The combination of sound quality and after rebate price (-0, total price 5 delivered) made it the right recorder for me.br /br /First off, the sound quality of the onboard condenser mics is superb, especially for voice. It was among the most uncolored I found while researching as well as when I tried it out for myself. The mics are 45 degrees off-axis, shielded in the perforated metal cage at the top of the unit, which translates into very low wind noise out in the field. If wind is a concern, there is a rather effective low-pass filter that you can employ from the menu options. I had read about a bit of a noise floor with the internal mics, but couldn't hear this when I listened to reviews on line and haven't discovered it in my quiet-room recordings either...so I don't think that's much of a problem.br /br /The recorder maxes out at 24bit depth, 48Khz sampling, and 192kb/s for MP3s, which is a step lower than a number of comparable alternative players (which offer 96khz sampling and 320kb/s for MP3s) but if your primary use will be the condenser mics on board the higher offerings are entirely overkill and largely added file size. Bit depth is far more important when considering recorder fidelity, and all offer 24bits in this price range. If you are shopping for a recorder by specs alone, there's a good chance you will inflate the importance of 96khz sampling and 320kb/s MP3 - focus on the 24bit depth instead.br /br /There are a host of options to tweak the presets (3 available), which make the unit very easy to use. It is a bit of a hassle to engage these (about 4 button presses to do so) which takes a bit of time, so you run the risk of losing something at a moment's notice if you are recording on the fly. Marantz could have improved on this by having preset buttons on the face of the unit, but oh well. Alternatively, just record with the maximum resolution all the time and you can transcode to MP3 once downloaded to your computer. Note - if recording with the onboard mics you will pick up 'clicking' sounds if you are adjusting the recording level from the side of the unit (shame on Marantz). This is probably the only time you'd press buttons while recording, and you'll probably only hear it if recording something very faint and hence need to crank up the recording level. Still, it's annoying. br /br /For the sound quality, easily a five star rating. Here are the quirks that give it a four, and you can judge for yourself if you can live with them:br /1) The headphone jack is on top of the recorder, right next to the internal mics. This will make noise every time the cord hits the unit. Marantz's argument is that this enables you to put the recorder in your pocket and be done with it...and if you're doing this, you probably have an external mic engaged anyhow so it isn't a problem. Alternatively, you can put the headphones in the line out (losing volume control) which is on the side of the unit. Note: no 48V phantom power or balanced inputs with this player, only 5V output for electret mics and they have to be 1/8" inputs. Not a problem for my uses (I also use a Rode SVM mic for an external mic), but it may be a dealbreaker for you.br /2) Everybody's gripe about the very cheap USB and SD doors is warranted: looking at these, you'll feel truly robbed that you paid so much for something that looks as if it were peddled at a flea market. I don't use these often which is good, because they look as though they are on borrowed time before they break. I truly, really, honestly don't know what Marantz was thinking here. The rest of the unit is well built, however.br /3) Transfer of files from the player is pretty slow with a USB connection. A better option is to remove the card and use a high-speed USB card reader. Again, not sure what Marantz was thinking.br /4) There were a few glitches with the firmware installed with the player, so I recommend immediately updating with v2.27 (google it, it's an easy find). Installation is a snap - just download the firmware to your SD card and turn on the player. br /5) Some have complained about the inability of some SDHC cards to be read by the player - I haven't experienced this yet but then again I went with Sandisk which is "strongly recommended" by marantz (as well as Lexar). They include a 512MB Sandisk card with the player, so this may be all you need anyway. Still, others have experienced problems with certain brands, so be aware.br /br /All said, it's a phenomenal player with a quirky exterior. Furthermore, Marantz gives you quite a bit of extra gear with the player (cables, memory, and a holder with built in tripod mount). The Olympus LS10 seems to command the lion's share of the portable market, but I consistently found the onboard mics too bright for my personal tastes (and it was 50% more expensive if you factor in the Marantz rebate). The Sony PCM-D50 is a phenomenal player (but 0) - really the standout of the bunch - but it is extremely prone to wind noise and the NON-included windscreen is !!. That's absurd, especially considering that it is an absolute necessity for that player. M-Audio microtrack II looks like a pretty nice unit too, but the proprietary (and short-lived) battery is a bad option if you consider the possibility of your player dying when you need it most...and the T-mic is a forced plug-in. Korg 1bit recorder sounds phenomenal, but it records to a spinning drive (yikes if you drop it) and the battery lasts only 2.5 hours! I didn't look too much into the Edirol or the Tascam, so I don't have too much input - some praise the Edirol quite a bit so it might be worth looking at as well. For me, the Marantz has clearly been the right choice.
Marantz PMD620 Handheld SD MP3/WAV Recorder Feature
- One Touch Stereo or Mono Recording
- Uses SD/SDHC Cards for Recording Uncompressed WAV or MP3 files
- 2 Condenser Microphones Built-in Monitor Speaker
- 16-Bit or 24-Bit Linear PCM Recording at 44.1 or 48kHz Sample Rates for WAV Files
- Operates on 2-AA Alkaline or NiMH Batteries
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Fantastic Handheld Recorder - Richard von Glahn - Denver, CO USA
There are so many different ways to use a recorder like this. My application is probably a bit different than most. br /br /I am part of a group that flies high altitude balloons. They go up to 100,000 feet and carry university student experimental payloads. We HAVE to recover them. We run a operational net on amateur radio repeaters. This net will extend for 3 to 4 hours. I plug the Marantz PMD620 into a radio and record the activities of the net to MP3 format (MP3-M mode, 64kbps, 44.1 KHz, mono) in VOX mode. The recorder can operate through the entire flight on a set of AA batteries with power to spare and record all the traffic easily. br /br /The quality of the recordings is excellent, however, even though I am using moderately high bitrates, it really doesn't matter. The audio from an amateur radio FM repeater is limited to 5KHz in width thus there is substantial limitation on the audio quality imposed by the radio system used. br /br /I have used the recorder in meetings where I set it to record from the internal mikes using the MP3-H mode, 192kbps stereo. The sound quality is very good however, I do have troubles with the volume levels of folks in the distance (15 or so feet). I set the record levels manually to zero db (or a little lower, perhaps -3) for the loudest speaker which is usually me as I'm most closely situated to the recorder. The distant speakers are way down, like (I'm guessing here) -40db or so. So, I gave up on using it at meetings and reverted to the Sony I previously used for that purpose. It has better ALC. But, the Marantz is much higher quality so this isn't a dis on the 620 in general just a note that an ALC controlled recording doesn't cover enough dynamic range, and setting it in manual mode locks out or at least severely limits what you can hear from distant individuals. If your meeting room has a mike system that you can jack into I'm sure the 620 would be a wonderful recorder. For that matter, it would probably work nicely if I had placed the recorder in the center of the room where it was equidistant from all speakers. Something that our meeting room makes difficult by the lack of easy access to the center of the room.br /br /I made test recordings at wav level compression, ie: no compression and the sound is excellent. Since that was a few months ago I won't say more than that I was impressed with the quietness of the recordings in an extremely quiet room. The guitar I was using as a sound source (Martin D-35) has a very distinctive tonal quality and that was faithfully represented within the recordings I'd made. Fingers moving across the frets, sliding along the strings, it was all very nicely reproduced along with the actual musical intonations. I believe the sound of guitar ambients is almost a better test of sound than the guitar itself. But, just a personal opinion there.br /br /So, to wrap up, I am completely satisfied with this recorder with one tiny gripe. The ALC has trouble handling a really wide dynamic range of sounds. But, most folks aren't going to be running in ALC with this thing anyway so I see that as a minor annoyance although I did strike one star for it. If possible I'd have given the review 4.9 stars. But, a deficit, however minor, needs to be accounted for in the rating.
Nov 04, 2010 13:01:04
