Sony PCM-M10 portable audio recorder

Concept: 4 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Doing as I say, as well as as I do.

The Long Version: I've been using a Sony PCM-D50 audio recorder for ages, so whenever someone asks me for buying advice, I've suggested its newer sibling, the PCM-M10. It's 80% of the D50 for half the price, and even exceeds the abilities of the bigger unit in some ways. My arguments in its favour were so compelling, in fact, that after a few years of recounting them I eventually succumbed and bought one myself.

The Sony M10 is a hand-size audio recorder with excellent electronics and supernatural battery life. Yes, you can use it with $500 monitor headphones if you want to, as long as they have a 3.5mm jack, but that's not really the point. Its pair of omnidirectional microphones are very tolerant of suboptimal use, at the expense of some soundstage crispness, so it's perfect for people who just want to record good audio without fussing over the minutia.

I'm primarily interested in field recording ambience and environments in the city, so I have different requirements than musicians or videographers. A low noise floor is always good, but an effective limiter that can handle loud transients is much more important. Stereo imaging matters, but so do forgiving microphones and quick startup times. And there's simply no way that I'm going to walk the streets with a blimp on a boom. For me getting the sound is more important than being able to record the highest possible fidelity, and that's where the Sony M10 comes in.

The PCM-M10 is, at its heart, consumer electronics. It doesn't have the metal heft of its higher-end siblings, and cuts some corners in its controls. The worst of this is the LCD backlight being set through the menu, rather than being toggled by a dedicated button, as it's hard to see the meter display when the light turns off. It's also brutally difficult to see the numerals on the levels dial, which are only stamped on its side without any contrasting markings – although I must note that some allegedly “serious” handy recorders lack a levels dial at all. The switches on the back of the unit are easy to move accidentally, which I've resolved with some gaffer tape. And the small size of the recorder makes it particularly ill-suited to having a wind screen, with nothing much to hold one in place and no way to avoid it obscuring the LCD display or LED metering guides. The M10 is not nearly as nice or as easy to use as my bigger Sony PCM-D50.

The PCM-M10 is, on its surface, consumer electronics. It's available in black, burgundy, or white plastic; all have a wide contrasting silver band around them. My burgundy model even has little metallic flecks in the plastic, although the Black is described as matte. The microphones are hidden within the body of the unit, with small grills to cover them and no protrusions. Only the track mark button is silver, with the tape-deck transport controls being body-colour, and a black row of secondary buttons is tucked into the black surround of the LCD bezel. No casual observer is going to mistake the M10 for A Serious Piece Of Gear, which most recorders come across as, or for a stun gun, which is a real danger with the Zooms. Instead it's just another hand-sized electronic gadget of no clear purpose, and even if it is recognized as a recorder, it looks like something a student might use to hold their place while they sleep through a lecture. The M10 is not nearly as noticeable or remarkable as my bigger Sony PCM-D50.

In my life "nondescript" and "inoffensive" are goals to be aspired to. The M10 fits in perfectly.

The best feature of the Sony recorders are their built-in limiters. These clever devices record a secondary track at a lower gain, -12dB for the M10 and -20dB for the D50 and D100, which they normalize and cut in seamlessly to avoid clipping. The M10's levels will just read "OVER" instead of giving a positive reading like the D50 would, giving less indication of if and how the levels should be adjusted, but the magic still works well enough.

The M10 also has the Sony five-second preroll buffer, and even comes with the wired remote that lets it start recording without any handling noise. That's great when lying in wait for sound, but enabling the buffer has another enormous practical advantage. Like many recorders, hitting record doesn't actually start the recorder recording. This is a solid opportunity to set the levels, but it's really easy to not notice that the pause button is still flashing and think that sound is being captured when it isn't. With the buffer turned off the display looks about the same whether it's paused or rolling, but with the preroll enabled the zeroed time counter is replaced by bold blocks that look vastly different. And that's why I keep the preroll enabled: it's an obvious indicator of the recording state right under the meters that I'm devoting my attention to.

Another Sony quirk is that there's no way to change the file name format in the recorder. It's always YYMMDD_XX, so my being in a multi-Sony environment means that using both recorders on the same day creates identical file names. (Although the M10 starts incrementing the _XX portion from _01, while the D50 starts at _00.) To get around this I've set the M10's date two decades into the future, which it accepts somewhat gullibly, even though that annoys my computer's 'list files by most recent' function. This may not be much of an issue for anyone else, anywhere, ever.

One of the strengths of the PCM-M10 is that its omnidirectional microphones are relatively immune to wind. Well, gentle breezes. Maybe immune to slight drafts is a better term. Outdoors it does need a screen on all but the calmest days, but when wind does hit the M10, the effect is relatively mild. And unlike the Sony D50, which loses its mind if someone walks past its unshielded microphones too quickly, the M10 can go naked indoors with near-impunity. This is another huge advantage in the effort to be nondescript and inoffensive.

When the M10 does need a hat I'll use the Røde Dead Kitten, which is originally designed for their Stereo Videomic, but also fits the D50 and similarly-sized recorders. This is pretty heavy-duty protection, and attenuates the high frequencies somewhat, but I haven't felt the need to add a lightweight screen. Sony's own M10-specific design costs almost as much as the recorder.

As an aside, I'm also a big fan of Joby's tripods. I can highly recommend their low-profile Micro 250, which permanently lives on the bottom of my M10, and the recorder still happily fits in a pocket or small camera case. This makes it easy to position it away from the surface of a table; for the brave it can even be used as a stand to prop up the recorder vertically, as it has for some of these photos. And it doesn't block the battery door, so I don't need to remove it when I swap the M10's two AA cells – which I do out of habit, not necessity, since I've never had the patience to actually run a set down.

The M10 has about the same footprint as a small phone – that's an iPhone 5 in the photo above – and weighs about as much as a large unpeeled banana. There's just no reason to not have it nearby. Its absurd battery life means that I keep it locked on 'hold' instead of turning it off, so it only needs a quick flip of the power switch to be instantly ready. I've lost count of the number of good sounds that I've caught with the M10 that I would otherwise have missed.

I bought the Sony M10 because I thought I would use it more than the on-paper-superior D50, and I was absolutely right. It's true that I will choose to carry and use my bigger D50, with its better stereo imaging and somewhat lower noise floor, when I know that I'll be dedicating significant time to audio recording and have the comfort level to use it. This is exactly the same as choosing when to carry and use a big DSLR instead of a smaller camera. And like having multiple cameras, there have been times when I've used the little M10 even though the D50 was also in my gear bag. I'm wincing just a little to say this, but if I could only keep one audio recorder – a horrible thought – I'd be better served by the versatile and inoffensive M10. Not that I'm known for making rational choices, but hopefully it never comes to that.

last updated 12 oct 2014

Rycote Portable Recorder Suspension

Concept: 4 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: Shown with optional accessories.

The Long Version: One of my favourite things about having a field audio recorder with built-in mics is the advice on how to avoid self-noise: hold it with a firm but relaxed grip. Seriously, am I expected to have years of practice with that technique or something?

It turns out that the easiest way to achieve this firm-but-loose hold is with a suspension mount. At present Rycote seems to be the only ones offering such a thing for portable recorders, as it screws into the camera-standard quarter-inch tripod socket that's on the bottom of most of them.

The good news is that the Rycote system works very well and promises to be durable. The suspension is a set of nylon-feeling plastic 'lyre' springs that are the masters of smooth-but-strong holds. It's good enough to let me create usable recordings while I walk with the recorder, which was simply impossible otherwise.

The biggest problem with the Rycote suspension system is that they missed the 'portable' part of the design brief. Instead of attaching to the bottom of the recorder with a captive screw, which is how the rest of the world does it, this product has decided to use a threaded rod and plastic thumb nut. The rod is detached from the assembly, screwed into the recorder – without the benefit of even a slot-head cut into the ends – and then inserted through the suspenders' mounting hole, to be locked in place by the black plastic nut-thing. This makes attaching and detaching the recorder into a major hassle, and the shock mount is too awkward and ungainly to easily pack away intact.

I've circumvented this design shortcoming by adding a Manfrotto quick release to the top of the shock mount, and I now leave the matching plate on the recorder all of the time. This also makes it compatible with my light full-sized tripod, monopod, and gorillapod, so I probably would have done it anyway, but it's going to be an unreasonable nuisance for a normal person who needs to attach and detach the recorder easily.

The non-recorder end of the shock mount has a pivot, and it's held together with a Philips screw and a nut. Adjusting the tension is done with a screwdriver, and there are no click-stops or other design refinements. This puts me firmly in the "I would have done it anyway" category once again. I usually carry a Swiss Army Knife with me, and keep a small Leatherman in my sound bag, so adjusting the screws' tension is no big deal. For me. Other people may have a different experience, but then again, field recording doesn't seem like an activity for minimalists.

Completing our physical tour, the end of the swivel mount is threaded for a 3/8ths screw attachment, so it can attach directly to the top of tripods or stands. Rycote also includes a separate cold-shoe foot that can thread into the bottom, and it in turn has a quarter-inch thread in the bottom of it, making it a handy adapter to have.

This shock mount is also sold in a kit that includes a grip bar and whichever Rycote windscreen is appropriate for each particular recorder, even though only the H2N variant seems to be in stock in the few stores that list it at all. And it must be a really nice grip bar that comes with it, because buying the suspension mount, windscreen, and an Ikan grip bar costs a whole lot less than buying the full package from B&H.

And while it goes beyond the scope of this review, one of the smarter things I've done is attach my old "Ultrapod II" to the bottom of my grip bar, giving me the isolation of the shock mount even when I'm using the recorder on a tabletop-sized tripod. Highly recommended.

The Rycote suspension mount takes some forum flack for being expensive, but given that there's no competitor to judge it against, it's hard to say how much something like this "should" cost. From what I see in microphone suspension mounts it doesn't seem unreasonable, and it's nice to know that Rycote consistently ranks above the competition, so we're not really missing out by not having a plethora of choices. And yes, I am a lifelong Apple Macintosh owner – why do you ask?

What makes me happy is that it's a zero-maintenance design: unlike the elastics that some makers use, Rycote's plastic "lyre" system will never wear out. That's worth something in running costs, spare-parts logistics, upkeep, and simple peace-of-mind.

Owning the Rycote has led me to a trap, though: it's so good, and so nice to use with the pistol-grip bar, that I automatically include the time to add it to my recorder when deciding if I have a chance of taking the Sony out to catch something that's happening around me. I forget that I could just hand-hold the recorder if I'm in a hurry, letting me avoid the two-step deployment process. Ah, well. It's not strictly a product fault, but be warned that having a suspension mount can be habit-forming.

last updated 25 jan 2013

X-Mini II Capsule Speaker

Concept: 4 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: I'm not the first to say it.

The Long Version: I've been reading reviews of little speakers for a while, and the X-mini capsule speaker kept coming up as one to buy. It can be tough to find in a crowd of others that now share its expanding-ping-pong-ball design, so when I happened to find it in a local store I decided it was time.

The speaker has the slogan "sound beyond size" moulded right into the top of it. I'm not a fan of ostentatious displays of marketeering, so this bugs me, but it's a tough slogan to argue with. This one little speaker can play loudly enough that I can hear it throughout my little apartment and worry about disturbing the neighbours. Impressive.

What's even more impressive is that the X-mini keeps up a surprisingly good sound quality almost all the way through its volume range, losing only a modest amount of definition when everything's fully cranked. But its entertainment value makes up for that: heavy bass will have the speaker jumping around and skating across tables. It's hard to dislike anything that happy.

And if one speaker isn't loud enough then there's the option to add more. These things can be daisy-chained together to hook multiple speakers to a single source. The sound remains mono, but it increases the headroom. There may be a second X-mini in my household's future – officially it would belong to Penny, but we're often in the same place.

Also included in the retail package is a carrying case and an unusual cable. It's USB-A on one end, 3.5mm audio on the other, and USB-mini in the middle. With the mini USB plugged into the speaker, then the audio end can plug into a sound source for a longer connection than what its short built-in cable provides, or the USB-A end can be plugged into a computer or charger to recharge its internal battery. But audio won't play through a USB-USB connection: there's a handy little instruction sheet that says so, but I still fell for it a couple of times.

The underside of the Mini shows its controls and the neatly stowed audio cable. (The volume dial is on the other side, not visible, opposite the power switch.) They missed an opportunity here – having the bright blue 'power' LED line up with something useful, like the On/Off switch or volume dial, would make the speaker more intuitive to control. But that's about the only criticism that I can come up with, especially considering the sound-to-price ratio that this little thing provides.

I've been very pleased with the X-Mini as an extremely small and easily portable speaker. It's loud enough to provide some music for a backyard family gathering, and good enough to be an improvement over my laptop speakers. The next time I travel it's guaranteed that this little thing will be coming with me.

last updated 26 nov 2012

Instrument Tuners--Snark And Behringer TU300

Concept: 3 out of 5 average
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: They both work for me and cost little

The Long Version: In addition to running sound and lights for a rock band and a country music group, I'm also the bassist for a progressive rock band called Televators, and we're working on our debut CD.

When I started playing guitar in the '70s, you could tune with a pitch pipe, a tuning fork, some dude's piano, or spend over $500 on a Conn or Petersen strobe-based tuner. All bad choices for a kid just trying to play in-tune with his garage band. Luckily, cheaper electronic units came out around 1980, but they weren't very good, nor cheap enough. The situation is much better today.

Tuning is critical when money is on the line. While pouring dollars out a hose to record in a professional studio in April I used a rack-mounted Korg that's long been a favorite of professionals. The wide display that sweeps left-to-right and back again while you're playing earned this model the nickname "Cylon". It was great, but kinda pricey and I think it's been discontinued although other rack tuners are still available. For our live shows I kept getting lucky in that the amp rigs I was borrowing all had similar units, but as I've been building my own system the need arose to finally buy my own.

And suddenly I had two!

The pedal style tuner on the right is one I ordered from B&H in NYC. It's got all the features I'll never need just like most of the other brands out there, but at a much nicer price. Think 75% less, which is how I like to shop.
Behringer gets a bad rep sometimes because their very affordable gear, while based on excellent German designs, is made in China to meet the lowest possible price-point and tends to fail when subjected to rigorous touring conditions. My experience mirrors many online reports, so I just try not to let clumsy roadies carry any of the company's products, and never use them in critical show-ending parts of the audio chain unless I have a spare with me.
But even when considered slightly disposable, I like the results of many Behringer products. "Don't drop your toys or they'll break" was good advice when I was 4, and it still makes sense.
Plastic body shell and hinge points, not various metals like the competitor's $90+ offerings. Don't stomp on it = No problem.


Other online reviews of this tuner mention that it's a little slow to respond on the very lowest notes of 5+ string bass guitars. My testing agrees, but since Televators only go down to drop-D tuning it hasn't been an issue for me. Still, this can be a deal-breaker for bassists in a big hurry.

You don't get an AC adapter (wall-wart) for $25, but it uses the same plug, voltage, and polarity as most other pedals so chances are you have a spare. I had three.
It's a great tuner for the price, but I'll admit that it's a bit tricky to change 9-volt batteries if you want to power it that way.


For my birthday the guitarist for Televators gave me the same tuner he uses, a SNARK brand chromatic that clips onto your instrument's headstock and senses the vibrations physically:
Nothing to plug in, works on acoustic as well as electric instruments, and it's tiny.
The going price online is usually under $20.

When playing live I dislike having anything hitching a ride on my bass for both aesthetic and practical reasons, and to use the Snark between songs it's necessary to turn your guitar off so nobody has to listen to the annoying sound of a musician tuning up for however long it might take. Pedal tuners like my Behringer mute the sound while tuning with a simple tap of your foot, and I love that convenience.

But the Snark has it's good points, for sure.
It's surprisingly quick at picking up your note and displaying results--faster than the Behringer and the Korg Cylon and pretty much every other tuner I've used during the past 30+ years.
The display looks great under the usual lighting conditions, although I still haven't tried it in direct sunlight--no foreseeable need to.
It's tiny and light and runs off a standard CR2032 button cell.
Has a built-in metronome, apparently. For students I guess.

The best part is that you don't have to plug into it, so ANY instrument to which it can be clamped is tunable with great precision.
When I'm writing songs or learning covers it's usually in front of my PC with the speakers down low. No amplifier, just bare acoustic energy from my bass or guitar strings. Having to plug into a tuner is a hassle, so the Snark is a real time saver. Same thing at band practice or in our ProTools studio.
I also set-up other people's guitars and basses, adjusting the truss-rod and bridge so that they'll play nicely and in-tune all the way up the neck. Sometimes these instruments are waiting for electrical parts to arrive, so the Snark allows me to get work done ahead of time.

The funny thing is that while playing with the Snark I clamped it onto my Black & Decker cordless drill, and I'll be damned if it didn't track the RPMs accurately!
My brother is pretty excited about this, because all it takes is a note-to-Hz-to rpm conversion chart to be able to measure all kinds of motors and other things that vibrate, as long as the fundamental frequency or one of the major harmonics falls within the tuner's range and you have a good idea which octave you're dealing with.

My Samsung Galaxy S phone vibrates a little above F.



Note added by Matthew: The Televators' first single, Milk Run, can be found on iTunes.

Awareness for Etymotic, Part One: Registration and Installation

Concept: 0 out of 5
Execution: 0 out of 5
Yeah, but: I hope getting there isn't half the fun.

The Long Version: As a reviewer, there's a special place in my heart for companies and products that really piss me off. They have reviews that practically write themselves – and Etymotic, with their handling of Essency's "AWARENESS!® for Etymotic" iOS App, has joined this select group.

I very recently bought a pair of Etymotic's HF3 earphones, which is bundled with the downloadable "AWARENESS!® for Etymotic" iOS program by the UK developer Essency. Essentially, "AWARENESS!®" is a clever-sounding program that uses the built-in mic to monitor and optionally transmit ambient sounds. This isn't a review of the app, although that's coming up soon; a review of the earphones themselves may also eventually follow as well. For now I'm just looking at the post-purchase experience: going from the earphones' retail box to the point where the "AWARENESS!®" application is up and running.

There is also a paid "AWARENESS!®PRO" version that unlocks a few additional features. The upgrade process is straightforward, but I won't bother dealing with the anti-customer stupidity of charging $15 in the iTunes Store versus the $5 cost of upgrading through the application. I'll save that for part two.

"AWARENESS!® for Etymotic" requires an account that's created via the Etymotic website. It asks for an amazing amount of personal information, including an email address, phone number, and full mailing address. If something is omitted, don't expect it to be easy to figure out what it is – I'm hardly an idiot when it comes to this internet thing, and I lost track of the number of times I bumped into some unmarked mandatory field or missed a requirement. And incidentally, you also need to type in the UPC and the secret code that's printed on the top of the box. Awesome.

And the purpose of asking for all of this information is made perfectly clear: to create the account to register the product to be able to use the app, the lucky customer must select at least one of Ety's marketing "tell me more" checkboxes. And no, "none of the above" is not an option. Not only is that repugnantly disrespectful, I'll even bet that it's illegal in many jurisdictions.

Once you've pressed "submit" – to the invasion of privacy and blatant disregard of your wishes – you earn the ability to log in to their "free" app.

Download the app, click to log in, and it asks for a user name and password. Hold on – the password is what I laboriously created online, but there was no mention of what the user name will be. Is it my full name, which was a mandatory field? Perhaps it's the required e-mail address? Could it be something randomly generated and buried in the click-this-link verification email? I love guessing games.

I type something in and get an error message: unable to connect to network. Check your internet connection. That's not unreasonable; two bars are showing on my iPhone 4S, but I'm on the Rogers Wireless network in downtown Toronto, so failure is always an option. I move to a place with better reception and type in my first guess again. Same 'bad network' result. Now I have to consider that "AWARENESS!®" could just be an idiotic program, so I ignore the second warning and take another guess at what my user name might be. Third time lucky: now it thinks that the Internet connection is just fine and I'm in.

And no, I'm not going to spoil the surprise by saying what worked.

I'm sure someone will helpfully point out that I don't need to use the app, and that I could choose to ignore it and continue to exist in anonymity. If I did that then I would still resent Etymotic for having the audacity to ask such impertinent questions as a condition of deriving the advertised benefits of their product, but I would also feel like I'm being cheated out of some features that they promote as "included with purchase" simply because I won't accept their blatantly unreasonable terms. That's not an improvement.

What's more, the "AWARENESS!®" app is important enough to Etymotic that they heavily promote it. They market isolation as a unique product advantage for their earphones, which makes the features of the app seem useful and appealing: it's in their interest for me to want it, associate it with them, and like it. It's absolutely not in their interest for me to be so dissatisfied with the process that I investigate further and discover that Essency also markets a generic version that makes Etymotic's vaunted isolation seem much less remarkable, and come away feeling cheapened and deceived.

It takes an unconscionable amount of hubris for companies like Essency and Etymotic to demand personal information in this post-LulzSec era. Linkedin, eHarmony, and Last.fm all fell to hackers in the time that it took me to write this, but I'm supposed to trust that Essency's infrastructure and information is properly secured? Seriously? The etymotic.com/awareness/register page isn't even encrypted.

Do you follow the internet's best practices and use a unique and complex password for every little pissant product registration page? I certainly don't, and although I do try to limit the damage that can be done, it seems inevitable that these small fish are going to get fried.

I have to ask: is the risk to Etymotic and Essency of non-Etymotic-owners using the limited functions of the free app – or purchasing the $5 Etymotic version instead of the functionally identical $7 unbranded edition – so great that it's worth the liability and effort of having the registration process at all, let alone one so onerously-yet-ineffectually locked down? Is having my email address really worth what it costs?

While I'm yet to form an opinion of the application itself, I do wish that I had found the white-label version rather than following Etymotic's links. It seems to skip the registration step, and the extra couple of bucks seems like a small price to pay for avoiding all of this nonsense.

Even assuming that there is a valid reason for Etymotic and/or Essency to restrict the app via product registration, there's still no excuse for the information that they collect or the platform that they do it with. "AWARENESS!®" is already capable of accepting and confirming login information – asking instead for the UPC and box code, and skipping all of the privacy invasions and marketing hoop-jumping, would be just as (in)effective at keeping the undesirables out. Instead they choose to inflict this anti-customer bullshit on people who either already have or would otherwise like to give them money.

Etymotic, a company with a sterling reputation for sound, thinks that getting my information is so important that they're willing to make me hate them. And to what end? When I do receive their mandatory marketing material I guarantee that all it will do is remind me how much I resent them right now.

Today my earphones are shiny and new. I took the considerable effort to seek out this brand and model, and spent a big chunk of money to own them. This should be the peak of my post-purchase happiness. Instead this terrible software tie-in and registration has me writing a 1200-word rant about just how bad the experience was.

What a massive amount of hassle and effort for such a lousy reward.

last updated 7 june 2012

Eton Scorpion Weather Radio

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 0 out of 5
Yeah, but: Beware the sheep in wolf's clothing.

The Long Version: The Eton Scorpion is a great gadget-lust device. It's a battery-operated radio that's charged by a dynamo crank and/or solar cell, receives AM, FM, and NOAA Weather Band frequencies, has a built-in 3-LED flashlight, and can charge a cell phone. The body has a rubber exterior with a built-in carabiner clip; it even has a name that could equally apply to a sports team or a weapon. The promise of a dependable and rugged device persuaded me to upgrade from a similarly-featured model that looked less like a Hummer, and perhaps fittingly my extra money was blown.

Eton, in a love-affair with capitalized letters, calls the Scorpion a "Multi-Purpose Solar Powered Digital Weather Radio, Compact and Power Packed For Extreme Conditions". It's an impressive string of words, but unfortunately its link to reality becomes more and more tenuous as it goes on. If they had just stopped at the comma, everything could have been okay. Almost. A 'Digital Radio' is actually something completely different from an analog radio with a digital tuner, which is what the Scorpion is, But Perhaps Eton Decided That an Accurate Product Description Would Have Made The List Of Attributes Too Wordy and Awkward to Read.

One of the first things that I found inside the package (pdf) was the warning to not to expose the unit to rain, moisture, or high humidity. So much for extreme conditions, unless they just meant extremely bright sun without exceeding the safe operating temperature of 40 degrees. It's impossible to know just how seriously these warnings need to be taken without risking the radio's destruction, so I don't know how much is because of a genuine weakness in this rubberized receiver, and how much of it is just Eton making certain that they're never liable for any failure of the product that bears their name. Frankly, either scenario is disappointing.

If the manufacturer's level of confidence is accurate, then the idea of clipping this to the back of a pack and forgetting about it is a very bad one. Of course, both the ten-ounce weight and built-in bottle opener suggest that this is more of a car-campers' toy than a serious back-country survival tool, unless the backpackers who use titanium sporks are also known to carry emergency energy supplements in heavy glass bottles.

The second-last claim that Eton makes is also suspect. Calling this radio "power packed" seems to suggest something other than the 3.6v shrink-wrapped battery that it contains. Consisting of three NiMH 2/3AAA cells, the battery is marked 350mAh, but that would be the capacity of each individual cell for 1050mAh total. Shown with a real battery for scale – AA, 1.2v, 2000mAh – I can't even begin to say how much I wish that this radio could simply take a few common-as-dirt rechargeable batteries and build in the same crank-powered charging circuitry.

Moving on to the main feature, the radio, the Scorpion manages decent reception and reasonable sound quality from its little speaker. Cranking for two solid minutes, averaging about 100rpm, yielded 15 minutes of reception at a modest volume. I don't have nearly enough sunlight in my north-facing and northern-latitude apartment to derive any benefit from the solar cell, so the crank is my only option. To its credit, the handle is large and easy to use, and the noise the dynamo makes is actually somewhat soothing.

Another feature of the Scorpion is that it can be used to power external devices that charge via USB. Five minutes of cranking let me play my iPod Shuffle for fifteen minutes, so if the power's out and I really need to hear a particular song then the Scorp will come in handy. A cable with two 3.5mm headphone jacks would have let me play it through the radio's speaker, but I'm simply not enough of a masochist to try it out for the sake of this review. Assuming that the radio and speaker-only run times are about the same, that means about two minutes of audio for every minute spent charging the different devices. My arm feels tired just thinking about it.

One charming feature of the Scorpion is the way it combines digital controls with the lack of any secondary battery to let it remember its settings. Don't bother setting the clock, because it won't last, and the digital tuner will earn its keep each time the radio needs to find the station that it was on when the little battery last died. The device does have a charge level indicator on its small monochrome LCD, but don't trust it when cranking the battery. It reports that it's full even when the radio would only play for a few moments.

The built-in flashlight must be great to have in a dire emergency, because it's only in times of desperation or extreme laziness that I would actually use it. Yes, I have seven different torches of various sizes and power levels within easy reach as I type this, not including the Scorpion, but that's still not the point. Even if I was a normal person with just a generic plastic hardware-store light in the junk drawer, I would still make sure that I had something better than the Scorpion on-hand if I knew that I would be needing a flashlight.

The Scorp throws a broad hot spot that's dominated by a bright ring, with weak spill that's mostly provided by the side LEDs. In quick brightness comparisons, it's a bit stronger than an average 1.5v light like my Gerber Infinity or my Leatherman Serac S2 on 'low' power. The S2 on 'high' smokes it, and that light's about the size of a cigarette; a more serious but still 1xAA battery torch like my Zebralight is completely out of the Scorpion's league. Yes, it can be said that it's better to have a light built in than to have to carry a second something, but dedicated flashlights that are better than the Scorpion are cheap, plentiful, and not very large. Most of them are also considerably more waterproof.

But I bought the Scorpion for times of desperation. The northeast blackout was only eight years ago, and it had been bothering me that I didn't have a battery-powered radio in the house. In event of an emergency, with no electricity and internet access, what else could I do for information? Use the radio in Penny's iPod Nano with one of the small battery-powered speakers that I have kicking around? Talk to the neighbours? Light the entire house with my myriad flashlights and the thirty-eight low-discharge AA batteries that I can think of off the top of my head, even without counting the ones that are already installed in those same flashlights?

So I probably could have just saved the fifty bucks that the Scorpion cost, since it's hardly something that I couldn't live without. I would certainly buy a cheaper "less rugged" design with an analog tuner if I could do it over again. It is nice to have a weather-band radio in the house, and as something that I'll almost certainly never actually need the Eton Scorpion is almost certainly up to the task. And who knows? If I'm ever really truly desperate, it could be nice to have.

last updated 3 oct 2011

Toronto Fire Services Scanner

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: This isn't just strange, it's strange-even-for-me.

The Long Version: I blame Roman Mars. His radio/podcast 99% Invisible profiled the streaming web audio from "You Are Listening To…", which combines live radio chatter from the police departments of various cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) with a stream of ambient music. It's a surprisingly effective mix, but as much as I like ambient music – and who doesn't? – I wanted something more lively and more local.

That's why I found Radio Reference and its scanner audio for the Toronto Fire Services. I was very quickly hooked on the feed, and will often have it playing even when I have other music on. To help the radio chatter make sense I've been learning a little more about the TFS and how it designates its trucks; I now some idea of the difference between a Rescue and Pumper (most Pumpers carry foam as well as water, while a rescue will carry more tools) and a Tower and Aerial truck (towers are rare but have an articulated platform and more reach). I'm still not quite sure what makes the Highrise unit of the South Command remarkable – I imagine that they're crewed by the best stair-climbers, but I'd love to know how their equipment is different.

A fascinating picture emerges from combining the live audio feed with the list of active incidents. As an outsider and civilian, I have little to no idea what's involved in being a firefighter, and have only been able to watch them work a few times. But now when I hear the sirens going past I can check out what's happening; recent calls in my neighbourhood have been for someone who lost consciousness at a restaurant, a chemical spill, and a garage fire. These are significant events with lasting impacts for the people involved, while for the fire crews and dispatchers these are part of the routine that's handled capably and without undue excitement. The mix of minor cataclysm and mundane administration is a little confounding.

Naturally, the feed for the Fire department isn't a cornucopia of good news, and there's one call in particular that I wish I hadn't heard. But I've certainly gained a new appreciation for the Toronto Fire Service – and not because of their headline performance at the rare major fire, but because of all of the little things that affect peoples' lives without ever making the news. Stuck elevators, medical calls, power lines down, alarm checks: it's the unglamorous but important day-to-day work that impresses me. And it's a good thing, too – with the stunning performance of the Blue Wall at and after Toronto's G20 conference, it's time for a new hero. I can only hope that Mayor Dob Ford's "Gravy Train" sloganeering achieves its inevitable collapse before he does something foolish.

last updated 5 sep 2011

Apple iPod Shuffle (4th Generation)

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The Long Version: One of the best thing about Apple is that they're willing to admit when they're wrong. Really. A perfect example of that is the 4th generation of the iPod Shuffle, which looks nothing at all like their dysmal third attempt at a basic and cheap music player. That change had to come.

The only carryover from the third generation is the "VoiceOver" speech system, which adds the significant ability to choose playlists in addition to hearing the name of the artist and song. Physically the fourth generation Shuffle is essentially the same as the second, with a body that's more square and a larger control panel, which is a clever way to make it look like it couldn't possibly be miniaturized any further. Otherwise the design is similar enough to the second generation that people can completely forget the rev.3 model, erasing that unpleasant blip from the pretty Apple world.

The Shuffle mk IV remains the only iPod without Apple's 30-pin connector, meaning that most accessories and docks aren't compatible, and there's no way to get a proper line out audio signal from it. The 3.5mm (1/8") jack provides all of the I/O for headphones and data; it's also used for charging via a powered USB port or adapter – not provided – so it can't be charged and used at the same time. All of this combines to make it pretty useless as part of a larger sound system. In exchange for that it's really, really small. The Shuffle takes up less room than a decent pair of earphones, and because there's no screen to protect there's no need to fuss with a case.

I was initially doubtful about the voice-over feature; after all, it was what enabled the third-generation Shuffle to be such a resounding flop. While I don't miss it on my bigger iPods, I've come to appreciate it as part of the Shuffle's charm. Pressing the button ducks the volume and speaks the name of the song and artist – press again to cut it off mid-sentence – and holding down the button starts it going through the playlists. It starts by announcing the current one, goes to "all songs", and then recites the rest alphabetically. It skips the current playlist, which is a nice touch, and returns to it once it's completed the list if the play button wasn't pressed to select a new one.

I can't imagine using the Shuffle without playlists to manage the 400+ songs that I keep on it, although the logistics of cycling through all of them has taught me to use short titles and pare them down to the bare essentials. I mostly use smart playlists to group my most-played and most-recent music, and keep a manual collection of favourites as well. I've also been playing around with the different language settings, so now sometimes it speaks in an Australian or French accent, and there seems to be nothing I can do about it. It's an entertaining quirk.

The controls of the Shuffle make me happy. As cool as touch screens are, I need to be able to control my music player with my eyes closed on a crowded bus in the middle of the night. All of the buttons can be identified by feel, they behave predictably, and the headphone jack provides the vital orientation cues. The clip on the Shuffle is a little odd to use, as there's really no way to get enough leverage to open it elegantly, but I'd miss it if it wasn't there.

I reluctantly bought the fourth-generation iPod Shuffle because my iPod Classic is too big and heavy when I travel with a small camera bag, and I thought I would only use it to solve that particular problem. Instead I've discovered that it's not just some inferior or cut-rate substitute for a better iPod, and its simple controls make it a vital alternative to the doohickery of the touch-screen iPod Nano. Now I carry the little Shuffle with me even when I never expect to use it. It takes up no space in my kit bags, I don't worry about breaking it, and it's relatively cheap to replace if it wanders off. I really didn't expect to like the Shuffle as much as I do, but like Apple, I can admit when I'm wrong. Really.

There's a lot to be said for doing a simple job simply.

last updated 3 june 2011

Afterquake

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: I liked it even before I knew the story.

The Long Version: Afterquake is a short album – 7 tracks, 18 minute run time – created by Abigail Washburn and David Liang, the latter doing business as the Shanghai Restoration Project, and the former being one of the most interesting clawhammer banjo players in America. Designed as a fundraiser for the reconstruction in China's Sichuan province following the 2008 earthquake, Afterquake is music primarily composed of "found" audio: children's singing, sounds from the reconstruction, and other local sources. There's no way to tell from the results that the entire project was completed in just a few weeks.

While the "genre" field in iTunes is notoriously inaccurate, it flags Afterquake as Electronic, which is reasonable enough even if it isn't exactly true. Irredeemable Metallica fans may not care for it, and anyone with an extensive opera collection is likewise better off elsewhere. But people with more diverse tastes in contemporary music will probably find it perfectly listenable, and any other modern bluegrass fans out there – I know there are a few of us – should check it out just to appreciate the amazing range of Béla Fleck's better half. It may not be something for non-Mandarin speakers to sing along to, but it's catchy just the same.

On an irrelevant aside, I also have to admit that I was pleased to see the distinctive shape of Sony's PCM-D50 audio recorder in a couple of the Afterquake videos. It's the same device that I use for field recordings, and while I'll never review it, I have looked at its case and some furry wind blockers. (For what it's worth, indoors they seem to prefer the Sony original, while outdoors it looks suspiciously like a Røde "Dead Kitten".) It's amazing what some solid but basic equipment can do when it's combined with tremendous skill and talent.

last updated 19 may 2011

Quick Look: Nikon ME-1 Microphone

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 1 out of 5
Yeah, but: It introduces a good idea.

The Long Version: The Nikon ME-1 microphone is a cute little thing, complete with a foam wind sock and a gold-plated right-angle mini-jack connection. It draws its power from the camera, and it's cheap. It's quite promising on paper, and I wasted no time in trying one out. I've only spent a few minutes with it so far, but I was able to make a few observations.

Microphones are like lenses: they do different things and they cost different amounts. The ME-1 is the 'kit lens' of mics, being better than the built-in type that it supersedes, and can give decent results when used in the right circumstances. But with that out of the way, I have to say that the ME-1 is a disappointment.

Nikon's website says that the ME-1's pick-up pattern is "unidirectional", but testing the microphone through my Sony PCM-D50 shows strong pickup from every direction, including behind. Despite its suggestive shape, the ME-1 is no shotgun, with off-axis sensitivity being greater than my D50 when its microphones are in the classic XY stereo configuration. Its lack of selectivity must be why Nikon will only say that it will "significantly reduce autofocus noise" – not eliminate it.

The other big advantage of having an external microphone is its isolation from handling noise. Here again the ME-1 disappoints, as it still caught every time I shifted my grip on the D7000. (As with the stereo test, the mic was plugged into my Sony D50 field recorder, which lets me monitor the sound in real time. The cameras themselves don't allow this level of self-awareness.) This is quite a bit more objectionable than its failure to reject off-axis sound, and will have a bigger impact on the audio recording.

So the question is: why buy an inexpensive microphone that doesn't focus the audio pickup where the lens is looking, and doesn't get rid of handling noise? I'm not sure I have the answer to that one. The ME-1 is a big improvement in the quality of the audio, even if it doesn't fix the nature of it. When sitting on a tripod with the lens focused on one spot it will do much better for recording interviews, even though it would mostly capture crowd noise at the school play or big game. But then nobody expects a kit lens to do everything – well, some do – so it should be little surprise than an inexpensive microphone isn't the equivalent of a professional lens. Good mics cost more for a good reason.

last updated 18 may 2011

99% Invisible

Concept: 4 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: Now I want to meet a vexillologist.

The Long Version: 99% Invisible is a tiny radio program about culture and design that's also a podcast. New episodes are mostly weekly, and past episodes have covered maps, city flags, sound design, concrete graffiti, cheque cashing stores, the considerations of authority and democracy in public space, and the possibilities of sending someone on a one-way mission to Mars. Pretty amazing stuff. It's rare for me to listen to an episode without scribbling a bunch of notes on ideas and websites to investigate.

Hosted by Roman Mars, the stock episodes run about four and a half minutes, although there are some extended podcast-only shows that break double digits. It's tightly focused and well edited, and strikes a great balance between providing enough depth without bogging down into the esoteric. Roman Mars serves as an eloquent narrator and provides bridges between interview clips from interesting people.

One of the best things about 99% Invisible is its production quality. Sound really matters, and there's none of the nonsense that mars so many amateur programs. Forget about those synthetic musical riffs accompanying long self-indulgent intros, and instead enjoy high production quality with some fascinating backing music. This is professional all the way, and it's worth listening to just for the sound of it all.

For further reading, there's also an article to check out on transom.org, which is a site worthy of exploration for anyone who's interested in capturing or sharing sound.

last updated 29 apr 2011

Sony RMPCM1 Wired Remote for the PCM-D50 Audio Recorder

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: It could be better - but how?

The Long Version: The Sony PCM-D50 is a great audio recorder, tough with good sound quality. One of its nifty features is a five-second preroll buffer, meaning that it can capture sounds that happen when the recorder is running but paused. All you need to do is hit the 'pause' button without spoiling the recording with handling noise, and that's where having a remote comes in.

The RM-PCM1 is a simple little device, being a thin remote on an equally thin 6-foot long cord. It has buttons for pause, record, stop, and divide, and a light to show when the recorder is rolling. Simple, straightforward, and does everything needed to control the recorder during capture. It even has a right-angle connector, which I love.

But despite its seeming usefulness, the RMPCM1 remote isn't an easy recommendation. For one thing, it doesn't really feel like a Sony product, certainly not in the same league as the D50 and D1 recorders that it mates with. The cable is thin and slightly insubstantial, leaving an expensive accessory feeling almost cheap. The other issue is that it's something of a nuisance to use. The six-foot long cord is too long to use while close enough to monitor the levels, and if you want to monitor the audio from the end of the remotes' reach, you'll need an extension for your headphones. Using a reliable radio-frequency wireless system would be a huge improvement, even if it adds to the already nontrivial cost.

So get the PCM1 remote if you'll need to be able to control the PCM-D50 or D1 from a moderate distance, or if the preroll buffer is an important part of how you'll use the recorder. Otherwise, give it a pass - it really doesn't add anything for normal use.

Behringer Tube UltraGain MIC200 Preamp/Direct Box

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 4 out of 5
Yeah, but: The Price Is Right

The Long Version: One year ago we were at a party and after a few too many whiskys I suggested to my friends that we “put the old band back together” but that instead of running sound, I would play bass.
They called my bluff, and it’s been going great.
But I still don’t have a bass amp of my own, and borrowing got old after the second time.

As a professional sound engineer for over 20 years, I have dealt with almost every bass amp on the market and have come to a few conclusions as to what would work for me.
Foremost in my mind was to get the most accurate sound straight from the bass sent to the mixing board. Most bass amps have an output for this purpose, and it’ll usually be switchable so as to bypass the amp’s graphic EQ or other tone modifiers, but none of them are as close to the source as I would like.

When confronted with the ugly tone many amps are forced to produce as a crutch for bad players, the next best option is to use a “Direct Box” between the instrument and amp.
This is a simple box with a transformer that converts a high impedance instrument’s signal to the low impedance preferred by mixing boards, while also providing a hard-wired ¼” output to the amp. They don’t affect the player’s tone onstage, but they also don’t give the engineer a surplus of signal to work with and are as low-tech as it gets.

While taking a crap a few months back I was reading my B&H PhotoVideo catalog and stumbled upon a neat little device I had never seen before, the Behringer Tube UltraGain MIC200 Preamp/Direct Box.

Getting right to the heart of the matter, this little box rocks.
It has ALL of the features of the very best direct boxes, then goes to 11 by not only including a 12AX7 vacuum tube in the signal path but also giving the user voicing options and a limiter.
For those who don’t know about such things, a 12AX7 tube is the heart of most of the greatest sounding guitar amps since the 1950s.
If you crank up the input gain and send too much signal into one of these, it’ll get a bit hotter to the touch and might distort a bit, but the distortion will be very pleasing to the ears compared with what happens in a solid state device: even-order harmonics instead of the much harsher-sounding odd-order harmonics.
I already have some speaker cabinets, so all I need now is a power amp to complete my rig.

Glowing Tube = Tone!

For people who have a ProTools-based recording environment, this is an easy and affordable way to get some analog warmth without sacrificing signal integrity.

Using mine in both a recording and live environment I can report complete satisfaction.
Since I only play active basses with 3-band EQs, it was easy to get an amazing tone through the front-of-house system while also enjoying better sound than usual through my borrowed stage amp.
Standing in front of my band Loud Nine’s Crown-powered Peavey FOH speakers (SP4 & FH18) I noticed that my bass tone was far superior to anything I had heard previously. Clean, precise, solid, and I can get it to growl with the twist of one retro-looking knob.

Negative Points are awarded to the 8 voicings that use Behringer’s limiter (right side of the knob).
It is much too slow to respond, so the first 4 notes of a song will be way too loud before it clamps down on the output level.

If you buy one of these I strongly recommend visiting your local Goodwill or other thrift store to locate a spare 9vAC/1.3amp+ wall-wart power supply with the proper connector and polarity.
Because I use several Alesis products I’m very aware of the need to keep spare power supplies with me when they are 9volt AC compared to the more reliable DC units.

I have used many of Behringer's products over the last 10+ years with great results. They do what they're supposed to do and at much lower prices than the competition.
However, their gear doesn't stand up to the abuse of touring very well.
Mixing boards have had multiple channels die, stereo compressors have become mono compressors, and a failed crossover nearly ruined a show.
Bottom line is that the German design is fantastic, while the Chinese manufacturing can be improved.
My MIC200 travels in a padded case and sits on a sticky rubber mat to keep it from vibrating off the amp and hitting the floor.

Price?
Got mine from B&H for $40 with free shipping.
(ART sells a similar unit for more, and plain direct boxes with none of it's features also can cost more).
The MIC100 model omits the voicings knob, and goes for $30.

These units represent a significant value, and I recommend them highly.

Sony Memory Stick

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: Is any memory card something to be enthusiastic about?

The Long Version: Two words always seem to come up when someone mentions Sony's Memory Stick format in a camera review, so I'll get them out of the way now: Expensive and Proprietary. Frankly, it gets a little monotonous. (Here, here, here, here, here, here...) No, they aren't sold at the local dollar store - on the shelf next to the toothpaste from South Afrlca - but their cost is in line with similar-speed SDHC cards from Sandisk and other reputable manufacturers. And if something being proprietary is such a problem for people buying P&S cameras, then why do cameras that take AA batteries, like my Canon SX20, hit so much resistance? Certainly, if someone already has a stack of SD cards, then a Sony device needs some pretty compelling features. Someone who has had a bad experience with a Sony camera, and wants to switch brands, won't have her day improved by telling her that she needs a new memory card as well. But these are relatively uncommon scenarios, and even cameras that take SD memory usually need a new card to go with them. We're past the point where buying enough memory to last through a week-long trip is a significant expense - as long as it's not an xD card, anyway.

I do have to confess that I find the many different names and formats of Sony's memory card(s) confusing, and even the wikipedia entry doesn't help much. I bought this card, a Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, because the plain old Memory Stick PRO Duo Mark 2 that lives in Penny's Cybershot S800 isn't certified to work with my PCM-D50 recorder. There's also an elusive "High Speed" model that isn't listed in the Wiki article, which has the same colour scheme as the PRO-HG card, but I have no idea what the differences (if any) might be. I suspect that Sony has hit the same wall that Sandisk recently climbed when it had to redo its names for the "Extreme" cards. There's only so many superlatives you can throw at a product; once you get to the Extreme Ultra Super-Duper PRO Special Edition to mark yet another format change or meaningless speed bump, your nomenclature is pretty much pooched and customer confusion is inevitable. The "Class X" system that SDHC cards use is vastly superior and does make it easier to understand some of the difference between cards. I want to say that Sony should adopt something similar, but that means either renaming existing products, or adding even more information to the already too-complicated names. Neither option is a good one, and there's already far too much nearly-meaningless marketing twaddle out there to make remembering all of it feasible.

But really, does anyone know what actual difference a Class 4 or Class 6 SDHC card will make in any of the hundreds of consumer cameras currently on the market?

So aside from a befuddling naming system that has lasted at least a half-decade too long, these cards are pretty much unremarkable. What I really wish for is an easy way to get a fingernail on these slippery little beasts - the scuff marks on mine are from needing my Swiss Army Knife's tweezers to get the card out of the PCM-D50's wimpy little pop-out slot. It makes me miss my Canon SX20's ability to fire its memory cards across the room, but since that's my biggest complaint about the PCMD50/Memory Stick combination, I'll live with it. What other option is there?

"Karate Dog" Squeaky Toy

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Is this thing really meant for dogs?

The Long Version: Like certain high-concept baby toys, this is a "dog toy" that seems like it's designed to appeal to tall people rather than the ones who will actually be using the product. Not that there's anything wrong with that - after all, neither dogs nor babies are known for their disposable income.

Back when I was a kid, we didn't have dog toys with fancy electronics; all they did was squeak. Dogs liked them back then, and a simple squeaker is still the best way to go. This plush toy, Karate Dog, has an electronic squawker that makes a bunch of different sounds, all of which are likely to freak out an actual dog. But that's really not who this one is for. The looks, the sounds - this thing is the funniest 'dog toy' I've ever seen. I even named my Mac's hard drive after it. Just look at this photo, and tell me that it doesn't look like I'm one arm's-length away from a solid whuppin':

The toy on its own is funny, but the sounds add a certain essence. It makes five vaguely martial-artsy sounds, and the sixth is a rapid-fire collection.

So it's not really a dog toy - but if they like it, it's a bonus.

Sony CKL-PCMD50 Case for the Sony PCM-D50

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 2 out of 5
Yeah, but: It's perfect for someone, but maybe not for me.

The Long Version: Sony makes a couple of cases for the PCM-D50 digital field recorder: there's the widely available LC-PCMD50G, which is a clam-shell style, and the CKL-PCMD50 model that was originally only available in Japan. It's since become more widely distributed, and it's the one that I bought with my recorder.

The CKL case is the audio equivalent of the ever-ready camera cases that used to be popular. Like a never-ready camera case, it attaches to the tripod mount and flips around when the recorder is being used, but doesn't get taken off of the device. It also comes with the wrist-strap that you see in these photos, which is nylon with leather, and a soft grey fabric bag that's big enough to add extra scuff protection to the whole assembly.

The case is designed to double as a stand, which it does reasonably well. The photo above is its 'high' configuration, and it's held in position by some magnets that are built into it. As you can see, the leather case is quite stiff, and provides ample protection for the recorder. For carrying around to interviews, recording sessions, and for ENG I can see it working quite well - any situation where the recorder can be put down somewhere clean and conveniently near the sound source. For 'stealth' recording, put the Sony D50's mics in the wide stereo position, and the case doesn't even need to be open. Naturally, you can't reach the front-panel controls, so start it going and then toggle the 'hold' switch on the side (to prevent the 'stop' button from getting pressed - I learned that the hard way) before closing the case.

The tour of the CKL flip-case ends at the back, where you can see (from right to left) the snap-button clasp, the coin-activated attachment screw, and the belt loop. That's really the first thing that seems like it isn't very well thought out; the belt loop has a simple snap to attach it, and doesn't seem particularly secure. I would hesitate to use it to actually carry the recorder, but it does come in handy for holding the wires on my earphones. For carrying the recorder hands-free when it's being used for field recording/ENG with an external microphone, it might be perfect - but people who plan on using a decent external mic probably aren't using the PCM-D50. I could be wrong, and probably am, but adding an overlapping snap for security certainly wouldn't hurt.

Personally, I haven't quite settled on how I use the PCM-D50, so I also haven't decided whether or not I like this case. It's great for carrying it and setting it down on tables, but I don't often do that. I'm much more likely to be hand-holding the recorder for environmental sound gathering, and for that I need to be really careful because the self-noise that the leather case generates is far worse than the handling noise from the bare recorder. And for serious sound recording, I need to remove the case completely so that I can use the D50 on a tripod - and then I need to make certain that the heavy leather wrist strap doesn't hit the stand. It's not cheap, so think about how you use the recorder before you go out and buy one - but if it's right for you, then it really is a great case.

Comparison: Sony ADPCM1 and Røde 'Dead Kitten' Windscreens on the Sony PCM-D50

Sony: 2 out of 5
Rode: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: Imagine if they were actually designed for the PCM-D50.


The Long Version: As part of my never-ending quest for expensive hobbies, I've decided to take up audio recording. After months researching portable field recorders, mostly spent on other people's review blogs, I chose the Sony PCM-D50. You will never, ever find a review of this excellent field recorder here - it's been done and there's nothing that I can add. I can only direct people to a few of the sites that helped me: Brad Linder, Transom, O'Reilly, Wingfield, Future Music, and F7 Sound. What I can do is fill in a little bit of information about the accessories.

The Sony D50 is equipped with a pair of condenser microphones, so it's very sensitive to wind noise. Some sort of windjammer is mandatory, but Sony doesn't include one in the box. Their recommended screen is the ADPCM1, and as its name suggests, it's also/originally for the $2000 PCM-D1. It has mid-length fur that's neatly trimmed, and the D50 still squeezes inside the fancy Sony flip case with it in place. My biggest complaint about the screen is that, despite being hard to put on, it has a very loose fit. I have no doubt that one day it will run away from home. I've already dropped it on the sidewalk a couple of times, and even the addition of some ponytail-elastics hasn't really helped.

Since I'm sure that I'll lose the Sony windscreen eventually, it seemed prudent to preemptively order its replacement. I had read on a forum that the Rode 'Dead Kitten' would fit the PCM-D50, so that was the one that I picked. (RØDE, for what it's worth, is Australian.) It has a taller and boxy design that's intended to go over the NT4 and Stereo VideoMic, but it has a very strong and narrow elastic cuff that holds snugly around the D50's roll cage. Its fur is also much longer and floofier than the Sony windscreen, making it look like the D50 is having a lot more fun.

The elastic on the Kitten is so strong that when it's off of the recorder it rolls into a little ball, and it can be hard to find the opening. It also has sides, with one flap that's longer than the others. With that put at the back, the -12 and 0dB LEDs on the D50 are somewhat visible, but mine will still get a slight haircut to help that out. And yes, I did include this photo just in case anyone thought I was being funny with the 'Dead Kitten' name. Did I mention that Rode is Australian?


Testing:


I wanted a simple way to compare the performance of the different windshields, so lacking any better ideas, I set up an oscillating fan. I've read somewhere that a fan doesn't provide a realistic test, since its steady output doesn't match the force or variability of real wind, but it was the best I could do for repeatable and consistent conditions. I set the recorder up about one foot from the fan and one foot from the ground, and positioned it so that it was catching the fan on one end of its travels. Even if it's not scientific in its rigour, the results do seem indicative of real-world performance.

These are Audacity's audio waveforms from the original 48KHz/24-bit .wav files for the Dead Kitten, Sony windscreen, and the bare nekkid PCM-D50. The mics were set to XY stereo, the gain was set to 7, and the low-cut filter was off. I set the levels so that the Sony windscreen was barely clipping, hitting +03dB, which the D50's fancy limiter handles with ease. The Rode peaked at about -3dB at the same position and settings; for the screenless recorder that was enough to cause serious hard clipping, which is the first time I've ever actually heard it with the D50. (A gain setting of '2' stopped the wind noise from clipping, and completely removed the sound of the pesky fan.) With the screens, the sound of the gears is audible underneath the hum of the blades, and with the Dead Kitten it can be heard even when the full force of the fan is hitting it.


You can click on these links to listen to the mp3 versions of the files. They're each 25 seconds long, start two seconds before the first pass of the fan, and end five seconds after the second pass. You'll want to turn the volume down for the last one.

Rode Dead Kitten:


Sony Windscreen:


Bare PCM-D50:



I have a habit of being very conciliatory in my comparison conclusions, and this isn't going to be an exception. The Dead Kitten is clearly the more effective windscreen, but at the expense of a slight overall reduction in sound levels. That's not a big deal, since the PCM-D50 has plenty of gain to spare, but the larger hairdo makes it very difficult to fit into its fancy case (sold separately). So I'm striking a compromise: dedicated recording sessions will use a tripod and the Rode screen, and the Sony windscreen is the one to use when I'm just carrying the D50 around in its case.

...at least until I lose it.