Zoom H2 recorder is on the marketplace for a while, mainly meant for reporters, the hunters of sounds and recording of live music events. There are several articles that cowl all these potential applications thoroughly (for example, this, this and that). What I need to do in this text of mine is throwing a very little light-weight on Zoom H2 oriented applications.
For myself I see 2 potential applications: the primary is that the recording of an analog source like a turntable or radio followed by changes to the sound of a PC and the assembly of CD, DVD-A DVD-V audio or MP3 / AAC. For this application is strictly necessary that the recording unit to interface well with the source and that has sensible input stages and analog / digital conversion.
There's therefore a additional "exotic": you see I build continuous measurements on each my system if I have to repair a head or estimate the speed of rotation of a flat or to check the prototype of an amplifier and various signals that register I transfer them to your PC for subsequent analysis, as you most likely have seen in my recent articles on some heads. Usually I use the large Tascam recorder, however this flow to the DVD is stuffed with problems and also the unit is so low in my cabinet, that his back is sort of unreachable, creating the affiliation control a real downside. A small portable recorder with a tight interface with the system or by pc, while not the danger of short circuits to ground and with sensible potentialities of the broadband and low noise would be extremely helpful! Zoom H2 is the answer?
Zoom H2 is an very practical, with an appearance like an old large diaphragm microphone. Will not weigh a ton, especially without the batteries, and usually offers a feeling enough plasticky: certainly will not elevate the materialistic pride to own his hands on the contrary, as an example, the economy Canon Ixus. But it's very practical and no obvious deficiencies: the controls are fairly easy and intuitive, even if the screen is terribly tiny.
The upper part of the four, 2 front and 2 rear, small-capsule mics, while the sides are the various ports of entry / exit: AC adapter, headphone / line out, external microphones (2 channels) and in line. The bottom has an area for an SD card for a maximum memory of 2GB.
The Zoom H2 records WAV files with a nominal resolution of sixteen or twenty four bits and a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz, forty eight kHz and ninety six kHz. You will record directly to MP3 files, great issue, especially in cases of very, very long sessions. The recorder comes with a combine of earphones that I actually have not even tried. Using a try of headphones for the iPod I tested the reproductive ability: watered down, while not much dynamic, gray, undoubtedly not an object that you wish to use for daily listening, but frankly this is not the aim for that the zoom H2 has been created.
If now we tend to begin to form a recording from line input immediately meet a downside and also very massive: there is no means to regulate recording levels. Oh, sure there is a level management within the GUI, but we have a tendency to believe? This management acts once the analog / digital converter. This means that the analog input signal should, by itself, being in the correct range, too high and therefore the ADC cut with horrible distortion, too low and therefore the resolution and signal / noise ratio can be reduced. To make it short or you are lucky, or have a phono stage with volume management (AQVOX) or a minimum of gain control or managed to place some management of the level of the source and H2. All this is often terribly annoying, but what is really disgraceful is that the brochure there is no reference to the present downside.
I measured the amplitude of the input signal: 630 mV to the line resulting in a peak at zero dBFS of the tape, and as a reference the utmost RMS output level of every CD is at least a pair of V. The frequency response is flat enough,-zero.5dB at twenty five Hz and 20 kHz with a sampling frequency of ninety six kHz. I measured the signal to noise ratio at different sampling rates with the inputs shorted: eighty six dB unweighted each 96kHz/24bit that 44.1kHz/24bit. In absolute terms this result is not sensible as a result of it fails even the minimum requirement for a 16-bit sampling, that stood at 96dB however it's definitely better than any cassette recorder and behaves in an exceedingly manner similar to pc audio interfaces from each USB and cheap FireWire and for this the Zoom H2 can be used for any measurement made of easy audio systems.
Besides the noise spectrum of the ADC is almost never flat enough not betraying the presence of current transformers used for power supply apart from an occasional peak at 30kHz. In itself, the noise is whiter than white, without any periodicity, drops or spikes that stand out. This is often a smart thing as a result of it means that that even if the noise is high enough it's also quite harmless.
Finally, the logical conclusion is that using 24bit mode can not bring any benefit can cost even additional memory. Why stay with 16bit unless you think that that the quantity "twenty four" has some magical properties.
The separation channel stereo line input is 73dB at 1 kHz and falls up to sixty dB in the high and low frequencies: again this can be not an extraordinary result, however still terribly smart for a portable device conjointly considering that Best heads for vinyl offer a separation but forty dB.
Tape recorder was used to drinking Zoom H2 However how will it sound? For this check I connected the Zoom H2 at a variable level output Apogee MiniDAC and i recorded some CDs with different sections of the sampling rate and then I loaded them in Adobe Audition to adjust the gain levels. Then I burned a CD with original tracks and that i've heard each the results obtained through my usual chain of audio source Denon / Apogee, amplifiers Michell and my Quad speakers. I conjointly did one thing similar with the disks using my Orbe. For alternative assessments used a brand new headphone amplifier with self-created AKG K-four hundred, this point through my PC with the cardboard Terratec.
The simple answer is: practically! However if you are against absolutely the attention to detail, we have a tendency to sincerely recommend to stop reading this and do one thing more helpful.
For color, width and depth recordings are sufficiently like the original CD, with the total absence of any imperfection or obtrusive omissions. This in itself would be a sensible result, but in the dynamic zoom flattens a small amount removing life and freshness to the music while the lowest frequencies appear homogenized and less solid. The result's a sound that at the beginning inspection seems fairly sensible but it is essentially a washed out version of what might and ought to be.
This may appear like a serious and serious verdict, but should be thought-about in context. The zoom produces a sound quality appreciate my PC interfaces for the TerraTec Phase twenty six and M-Audio FireWire Audiophile 2496, but in a very much additional manageable and configuration of microphones already built pretty sensible.
I had supposed to publish some MP3 songs at 128 kbps created from the first CD and also the recording of the zoom, thus you may judge for themselves the variations. But I found that the differences between the CD and the MP3 version is much a lot of vital than those between the CD and zoom by losing sense of the idea: I assume that this will quantify the quality of Zoom H2.
For pure game I created a recording through the microphone of the zoom of my system enjoying at a reasonable sound level. What I got wasn't bad in the slightest degree, certainly superior to what I might achieve with the combination of Sony Walkman / Core Sound microphones, though the stereo image that is quite close to the mono, as a result of each the 4-meter separating my speakers, is restricted by the spatial separation of the designed-in Zoom H2 microphone.
The Zoom H2 offers a decent recording level, combined with a sensible build quality and a few strange lack of functionality (keep in mind the recording level?). Said this is often an economical and sensible for those who need to run an occasional recording from analog sources.
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