Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder 

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

I had a chance to use this in various settings. If the sound you are recording is loud or you are close to the source, it's good but for nture recordings such as birds, it's going to add a lot of noise because you have to turn the input gain way up. My other complaint is that the XLR phantom power (which is switchable) uses up the batteries so quickly. Not really the fault of a device that is powered on 2 AA batteries. When using phantom power, I now try to power it from my car battery when possible. The internal microphones worked okay but using external ones of course sound better (provided they are decent). I hate that they weighted it to make it seem less cheap. Not good for back packers! Might be able to take the weight out but I tend to break things when I attempt opening them so I will leave it as is.

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

Just got it and tested it out. It sounds pretty good with the built-in microphone. I plan to use it with 3 XLR microphones with a female XLR to stereo 1/8th male adaptor by Hosa. It's stereo for the power *not* for two microphones. With this unit, you can have up to 3 phantom powered microphones. Sweet for such an inexpensive device! The only thing I don't like is that it has a weight in it. This is to make it seem like it's not cheap but it serves no other purpose. I've noticed other companies are doing this but this is a portable item (perhaps for your backpacking trip) and you don't want extra weight for nothing. Boo! It also would make it more likely to break when dropped than if had they left the weight out. I bought this as a returned item for a discount and was happy to see it was repackaged like new with all the accessories included. It does not come with batteries but having an adaptor more than makes up for that. I wish it had the remote control which is optional.

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

Just what I need to work with in my studio or for class.

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

We had borrowed an earlier model to record for an audition, and decided to give this as a gift to our flute instructor to use with her students. My 14 year figured out the basic functions of recording and downloading with no problem so that she can show her teacher how to use it. Probably more functions that will be necessary for her use, but the quality is beautiful.

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

I'm a broadcast engineer who had to choose a new digital platform for our field recordings. We had used minidiscs for years, but the equipment was wearing out. The H4N is a rugged box that can take a lot of field work. Some care needs to be used, but it's not as fragile as minidisc. I built up an aluminum foam-lined carry case for it, so it's easy to take into the field with batteries, accessories and all.

The unit lasts forever on two AA batts. I know a previous reviewer said it doesn't shut off and drains the batteries after about 6 hours. I don't see how this is possible since it can go for over 80 hours on a single set of batts. You must purposefully shut the unit off by holding down the slider-type power switch. As far a I've been able to discern, this truly puts the unit into an "off" condition.

Audio is super clean, and the onboard electret mics are super sensitive, so don't try to do interviews directly into them. Instead, use a standard hand held mic plugged into one of the XLR inputs. This works very well. Even with one mic plugged in, there's a setting for it to record mono (left & right) from that one mic.

We bought it because it was one of the few digital recorders that supported XLR inputs as well as allowed a variety on high level ins with both XLR and TRS. As a last resort, when all else fails, the built-in mics can be used to make your recording, which is great for putting on a mic stand and pick up concert hall stereo recordings with the onboard mics while hard-miking electric instruments and capturing the whole event in 4 tracks!

Versatile, affordable and durable. This unit has it all, even though the menu can be a little confusing to most of us here. Keep in mind the stamina mode removes certain menu items and features, and forces you to record WAV files only (since encoding an mp3 takes more processing power). Also, there's a huge variety of of standard mp3 encoding bitrates all the way up to 320kbps which are compatible even with the oldest wav editor you have with an mp3 filter plugin. We still use Cool Edit Pro 2.1 and the audio files open and edit quite readily from the H4N. There's no special mp3 codec, like MP3 Pro, used in the H4N, thank goodness.

The unit comes with a mic handle mount that fits into any mic clip, or the body can be attached to a tripod with a standard 1/4 threaded mount. The mic handle add-on screws into this same thread on the body of the unit.

It's sophisticated enough, but yet can be operated simply, if you need it.

Get it, I think it's way better than some other units I've seen out there. At least the engineers put a lot of thought into how this unit could be used in a professional field setting, as well as intimate studio settings. It's worthy of your audio recording toolbox and makes super clean and transparent recordings, which was one of the reasons why I bought it for our use. With the add-on of 4 track recording and acceptance of XLR, TS and TRS, multiple mp3 recording formats along with full WAVs, this unit was a no-brainer once we had it in our hands. I couldn't think of using any other recording unit now in the field.

The price has come down significantly since it's introduction (near 4 bills at the time), so it's an even better value today then it was even two years ago!

My previous review from November 2009:
We bought this to replace our tiny consumer-grade minidisk recorder. Not only was it nearly impossible to get a good recording from a professional XLR mic on the minidisk mic plug-in, but the machines have moving parts and over the years the studio minidisks have begun to misread disks recorded on the portable unit.

This Zoom Mp3 recorder works beautifully! It only took me about 5 minutes to understand the basic stuff, and another hour had me running circles around the insides of this thing. It has a metronome and a guitar tuner built in, nice add ons for the musically inclined. But for radio, this makes a great on-the-spot recorder for ENG, or sponsor-voiced ads. Another good feature is the ability to set the unit to record to Left and Right channels (mono mix) from one mic plugged into the XLRs on the bottom. I may point out that mics can also have unbalanced phone plugs too, since this has the nutrix style XLRs in the bottom of it to accomodate all plug types. Also has a mini jack on the back to accommodate a PZM or Stereo camera mic.

The built in speaker is nice, though not terribly loud without rattling, but, it at least can give you a quick check without headphones. The built in mics are super sensitive, like that you would find in an encapsulated ribbon velocity mic. The mics can pick up the wind subsonics that vibrate the diaphragm at super-low freqs, so use a windscreen if you expect any wind at all, or use the built-in electronic Lo-end rolloff or a different microphone.

This unit records good old plain MP3's so even older versions of Cool Edit Pro can open the files it creates without special codecs. The Mp3s are more transparent than the manual intonates they would be, though still better quality can be had with WAV recording which this unit will do! There's all kinds of bit rates to choose from for file size or quality management, and the best part is this unit remembers it settings after it is turned off!

Our sales people can even take this out and look like a genius, because they don't have to remember to set up a bunch of stuff in the menus. The menu navigation took me a moment to figure out how to back out of (the manual doesn't say how to do this), but once I figured it out, it wasn't too bad.

Overall, this is a terrific unit for the money, the quality and quietness of the recordings is astounding, and the dynamic range and sensitivity are great. The general compressor algorythm built into this unit works more smoothly than it's vocal compressor counterpart, but overall, a wonderfully thoughtful arrangment of accessability, functionality, and intuitiveness.

The weight is great, it will stay put where it's placed. I feel like I'm holding some real professional gear with some guts, just like the old Marantz tape recorders, this baby appears to be built very well with a rubberized outer skin and nice little clamshell plastic box resembling that of the old VHS cases to rest it in when you are done! Comes with wall wart, windscreen, a screw on mount to use in a mic stand, or hand hold, or your can put this on your camera tripod with the standard 1/4 inch thread base, also in the box is 1 Gbyte of SD memory to get you started. SD memory is down to a couple of Lincolns for 30 Gig right now, but at 128kbps, you can get over nine hundred minutes on the 1GB card! Lasts up to 6 or 7 hours on two double AA's and up to 11 hours in stamina mode! Not bad for a mini computer!

I highly recommend this unit to start your foray into Mp3 recording in the field, or if you just want to finally dump your cassettes and pass minidisk completely, I believe you will be pleased. Even my most technically neophite salesman could figure out how to record with this unit once it was set up. Get it, I think you'll love it!

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

Registration involves multiple companies and complicated steps, unlike anything I have encountered. I was soured by the initial effort. This unit is more sophisticated than I needed so I will return it for one that is easier to use.

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

It doesn't get much easier than this. I purchased the H4N to capture licks/songs on a daily basis. No longer do I have to sit there and wonder, "how did I play that run the other day."

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

I own several Zoom products, ranging from the original H4, to the hard drive based multitrack/DAW recorders. The H4n is a much improved model of the original H4, offering ease of use and an improved feature set, as well as a better display and operational interface, The buttons and controls are intuitive. The unit has a rugged feel, that seems to indicate that it could stand up to hard field use, considering one took reasonable care. More importantly, recordings are very quiet and accurate. 4-channel simultaneous recording is unusual for a recorder in this class. Factory support is responsive, as I needed a replacement battery cover, and they were polite and took care of my problem. The battery cover is the only drawback to this unit that I can see, as it is somewhat easy to damage if changing batteries in a hurry.

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

Does what they say...love it!!
Does so much..still learning it
Feels solid, not a cheap housing
Got a deal on it so big value to me

Comments about Zoom H4N Portable Digital Recorder:

Great tool for musicians. Record a great sounding file, put it in itunes, email it to band mates, anything you can think of.

Super easy to use.