Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder by Zoom
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List Price: Our Price: Calculated in a shopping cart Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Musical Instruments See more digital camera details and other models |
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Digital camera reviews of Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stereo Recorder
Digital camera Review: Zoom H2 Handy Portable Stero Recorder
Summary: 5 Stars
The H2 is indeed a tiny handy device for all it does...and with 4 mics too. I appreciate the at on-board menu is simple, the instruction manual easy to understand and follow. I haven't done everything I plan with it yet, but I am confident I will be able to do it without tech support. It seems that after going through the menu, for my kind of use, there is about one set of menu settings I will normally use, so the Key Hold function is invaluable for an all-thumbs kind of guy like me. There are a few settings I will try variations of until I know exactly which I prefer, but the menu is easy to change and not dangerous for the novice. I would highly recommend the H2...it is clear on recording and clear on playback, with an excellent variety of recording mic arrangements. And the variety of transfer to computer capabilities makes moving the recordings to a song enhancement program quite simple, such as the USB cable, the USB stick and the 4ggb storage card. Thanks...Digital camera Review: Add my voice to the chorus
Summary: 5 Stars
This handy little device has been getting great reviews, and not without reason. It is reasonably priced, easy to learn to use, versatile, and the recording quality is outstanding. I cannot recommend it highly enough.Digital camera Review: solid value, excellent recording!
Summary: 5 Stars
As usual Amazon shipped it to me with blazing speed. The product is clear and easy to use, small screen but useful. The product is functionally built, not professional sturdy, but well made and well layed out. The built in microphones provide fantastick recording results. The playback is exquisitely clear and accurate. The line-in works as well and is very easy to set levels with. A fantastick home use product of great value and excellent performance. Would not be suitable for hard usage but perfectly acceptable for home usage with good care.Digital camera Review: Great value, but cheaply made. Some input issues, but great overall!
Summary: 4 Stars
I keep using this thing more and more, and updating my review. I now feel fine with my 4-star rating.
I bought this thing for podcasts, and got so hooked on podcasting that I decided to spend another $70 on a small audio board, and $300 on a Shure KSM27 mic. That mic is excellent, but I found that I had really wasted my money going with the more expensive set-up. Why? Because this little Zoom H2 does an excellent job. Sure, it's not a high-quality condenser for recording singing voices, but it is optimized well for audio VO's if you use the 90 degree mic to record your voice from 6 inches away. Using my Zoom H2 is easier, and once compression is added, sounds as good or better than my home studio set-up with the more expensive mics. Better yet -- it's so easy and doesn't take up an entire desk. You can take it anywhere. For the home podcaster, this little tool is fabulous, and is all you need. If you want to add mics for interviews, look at the Zoom H4 though.
I also like that this little unit captures my audio without all of the echos around the room like a condenser mic will. It really has an ability to keep noise out of the background if you set the levels right.
What everyone has said about this product being cheaply made is true. The battery door has some of the most flimsy little hooks on it I've ever seen on a battery door. The Smart Media card door is better, but still very delicate. With that said, this product is an excellent value, considering what else is out there with the same features. I am a former TV commercial writer/producer, and I would rate the sound quality as "Good" to "Very Good" but not "Excellent." I only rated it so because it does not have as much bass as a high-quality studio set-up, for example, and the highs whisper a tiny bit (but I'm nit-picking for the pricepoint -- it's a great deal). When recording a single person, it's comparable to a decent ENG field mic, although its versatility allows it to do a better job at capturing nat sound if you so desire.
It's almost the perfect unit for the podcaster hobbyist (which is what I got it for), with some exceptions you may need to consider. One is that the external mic input is dirty, meaning it has a very poor signal-to-noise ratio which makes it nearly useless, in my opinion. This worsens the higher the gain setting is. Online forums have been abuzz with this issue. The line-input is satisfactory, but not the mic input.
Another negative is that I have found the front side mic to be better sounding than the rear side mic. They are not equal in sound if you plan on setting the mic between two people or around a table discussion. The people on the back side of the unit (surround modes) will have less bass and gain to their voices than those placed facing the front. It doesn't matter if you have the setting on mono, stereo, or whatever. You can notice this same difference in quality just talking directly into either side, as well. What works best for me is to hold the unit using the 90 degree mic setting, and speak into that, and moving my hand back and forth to place it in front of whomever is talking.
The hand mic attachment they included was a nice thought, but it adds noise, actually, because it moves around at the screw joint. I have found a way to half-hold the mic and the handle together to remove this, but it kind of negates the whole point of the handle in the first place.
A good thing is it records to .mp3 and .wav, which other manufacturers charge a lot more for. Beware of some companies that use their own proprietary codecs which make editing quality audio on your home computer a painful process.
The Zoom H2 is not durable enough or quick enough for the professional looking for a more rugged product. I'm not sure how well the unit would survive a drop, and as mentioned, the battery door is a tragic downfall.
If you know what you're doing, you can create very good audio. You can do a lot of tweaking to get it just right. If you don't tweak and just set it to medium gain with the switch on the side, you can still create good audio that will suffice for any podcast-type situation. You have to be very careful that the audio does not go over -12 (half), or it will start crunching/clipping. The internal compression and limiting settings don't do a good job and are all but useless to me. I need to experiment more, but I just leave them off due to past difficulties. I find I have to amplify the audio a lot in editing programs due to the low record level I need to record at to avoid clipping. The audio still sounds great and is low-noise when I do, so it's not a big deal.
I feel this product excels at capturing room ambiance and NAT sound. It does a stunning job at that. It does a good job with voice, however. It has a nice proximity effect, meaning that you can add more bass/low end to your voice as you get closer to it. Beware of popping your "p's" if you get too close, and watch that meter!
If you're podcasting on a budget, it's far better than typical voice recorders, and sounds very good. It does do an excellent job of making capture easy, and I found the menu system was not difficult at all to learn. It's not a device to use if you need to grab audio quickly without much planning. You are required to press the record button twice, and it's easy to get confused and think it's recording when it's not (pushing the record button once fires up the earphones so you can make adjustments). You should look at the time counter on the unit to make sure it's recording.
There is a fabulous selection of quality levels from which to choose from. The highest-levels sound stunning, but aren't as useful to someone like me who has to compress for podcasts. Still, it's great that they are there. The highest level 4 channel surround mode splits into 2 separate audio files, so if you're someone who actually edits 5.1 audio, you'll be giddy about the NAT sound it will pick up like this. For the majority of us, the 2 channel mode which records from both sides of the unit into one L/R track is excellent enough.
I'm happy with my purchase, but somewhat wish I had spent a little more and purchased the Zoom H4 for its two separate mic inputs. I can make due, however, and I hear the H4's internal mics "whistle" too much. Recording with this unit sitting on the table between us adds too much background noise and lowers the audio quality considerably over me facing the front 90 degree mic in front of the mouth of whomever is talking. Just keep the levels below half-way (-12) and boost sound in post, and you'll be fine. Yes, that's very low, but above that, it starts to clip -- a sure downfall, but one you can get around by boosting levels. It's an extremely low-noise product, so doing this isn't a problem. You can hear what this machine sounds like on my podcast at themidnightrunner dot com if you like. I record nearly every interview on there with the Zoom, and then add some bass and treble into the EQ in post. Sounds great!
I look forward to the fun I will continue to have with this product. I will be careful with it, though, for the above-mentioned reasons, but it's really doing a nice job on my podcasts at the midnightrunner dot com. Try that for some samples. Field recordings are exclusively Zoom H2. Intros are sometimes done on other mics in studio. I'm experimenting.
Digital camera Review: BILL ME LATER
Summary: 1 Stars
Yesterday I tried to buy the Zoom H-4, My 2 friends tried, My kids tried.. and I just tried this one to see if it is the same as what happened. It is all about the "Bill Me Later" $10 discount.
Don't expect the BillMeLater will pay you $10 because right after you enter every information of yours, it will tell you "We're sorry, but the promotional code you entered cannot be applied to this purchase....". If it couln't be applied, why AMAZON is still OFFERING it? God knows!
You might ask why? The reason is The Bill Me Later ONLY wants your personal informations. Someone is SELLING our informations!!