iRiver E100 on sale at Wal-mart with line-in recording!

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fbueller

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I'm curious if anyone has tried using this for line-in recording. If the quality is good, it should beat the quality of a minidisc with longer battery life and no skipping issues. The 8gb version is on sale at Wal-mart for $60, which is pretty cheap. The Amazon review said this -

I got this player because I wanted a one I could take out to the woods with my me, plug in a decent microphone and record acoustic guitar songs. This player works great. What the specs don't say is that the line in is stereo not just mono, so you can use nice stereo mics, so its better than I thought. Also the recording quality is really quite good through the line-in. Its comparable to the line-in on my macbook.

Sounds encouraging for a solid-state recorder. Anyone have experience with this unit?
 
all my recordings are done on an iriver recorder love it .. it has some limitations (no visual feedback on volume and so on ..) but it's super small and very handy  ;D
 
I believe that if i t's only got line-in, you will not be able to use this with induction pickups and will also need a powered mic in order to use it was regular recording.  Is this true dolby?

While the price is certainly tempting, I can't imagine this comes anywhere close to a minidisc in terms of quality.  I've  got one in my basket, but just can't seem to pull the trigger.
 
Minidisc uses ATRAC compression which is far worse than MP3 compression at the same bitrate (ATRAC is a late 80's technology, for crying out loud). If it lets you do .wav line in, it should be really good.

You don't need an amp with line-level in, I've used my induction with a Creative MP3 recorder before (Creative line-in is awful quality, but that has nothing to do with the intrinsic nature of it). I recorded the music at the Georgia Aquarium that way (it's really beautiful stuff) with their ALD.
 
I believe that if i t's only got line-in, you will not be able to use this with induction pickups and will also need a powered mic in order to use it was regular recording.  Is this true dolby?
Click to expand...
my iriver (ifp-899´) is also working with my stereo soundman mics that need a phantom volatage to work .. (you need to switch the line in to mic in the menu) .. but I switched over to an external mic amp so the recordings got much clearer and have a higher dynamic range..

what I can't guarantee that this new iriver player has the same features
 
I'm really not trying to get into a pissing match...  But here's some info on ATRAC vs MP3...

http://www.minidisc.org/keep/atracmp3.pdf

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=23182

I have never heard any complaints about my recordings, ATRAC3+.  I will admit that WAV is the way to go if you can, but most of my work revolves around BGM loops and recording those in WAV often exceeds my storage abililty and also my desire to upgrade.  And, I'll say it again, for what we're recording, ATRAC, WAV, MP3 or whatever is more than enough. The limitation in the quality is the speakers or whatever else we're using at our recording source ALD devices included.

What will make a difference is having manual control over things like levels, ability to use external microphones, etc. 
 
I was fortunate enough that Santa brought me a Zoom H2 recorder that allows recordings in both WAV and MP3 format.  It also allows manual level setting as well as automatic gain on both in-line and microphone - it even includes power to the mic.  So far I'm impressed with various tests I've tried (including surround sound) and look forward to trying it at DLRP in May.  Definitely worth checking out.
 
needmagic said:
I was fortunate enough that Santa brought me a Zoom H2 recorder that allows recordings in both WAV and MP3 format.  It also allows manual level setting as well as automatic gain on both in-line and microphone - it even includes power to the mic.  So far I'm impressed with various tests I've tried (including surround sound) and look forward to trying it at DLRP in May.  Definitely worth checking out.
Click to expand...
Excellent Score!

First things first..  Turn off that Automatic Gain Control!  Very bad for accurate recordings...  An excellent example of how bad AGC is, is my Songs of the Rainforest  recording.  It was an early recording done via an induction pickup and a camcorder.  The AGC really screwed up the levels on that puppy.  It's on my list of things to "fix" in my upcoming trip.

I'd be interested in hearing some tests if you get around to it.  Once my RH-1 goes, that was high on the list of replacements.
 
This review swayed it for me  http://www.portlandmusiccompany.com/h2.html.  The site also features some downloads of the audio taken during the video review.  Thanks for the tip regarding auto gain - I'll bear that in mind!  The major test so far was to connect the line-in to a headphone sockect to record my son commentating on a local soccer match on the radio.
 
nice tool .. you can get it for 210€ incl 4 Years warranty  :o... can't wait for some samples .. so I can through my eyes on this puppy :)
 
First of all ... Happy New Year from the UK to one and all.

Secondly, here are some samples using the ZOOM H2.  This first test was to see if I could use the headphone socket to record audio using the line-in facilty.  The audio (in MP3 format 192kbps with auto gain off) is from a DLRP promo DVD and played on a PC through windows media player.  Theres's a bit of background noise during playback - probably due to the soundcard??

Anyway .. I hope you find them of interest

http://rapidshare.com/files/178699874/DLRP_-_Promo_DVD_-_Disneyland_Park_Audio_3-38.mp3.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/178699875/DLRP_-_Promo_DVD_-_WDS_Audio_2-30.mp3.html
 
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