Zoom H1n Handy Recorder

[pma]

I bought a new toy - Zoom H1n Handy Recorder for quick field recordings. It has 2 microphones and looks like this:

Specifications:

First quick measurements in 48/16 mode do not look bad, for such a toy:

3rd harmonic only

Some acceptable 2nd and 3rd harmonic in this quite severe test

 

[MRC01]

I got a Zoom H4 over 10 years ago. It measured pretty well, but it did have a noise/distortion spike that I was able to fix by adding caps to the power supply. IIRC, this was around 789 Hz. Yours shows a spike near that same freq, but it is MUCH lower in level. Mine was -46 dB which I noticed when listening. Yours is below -100 dB so you won't need the mod that I did.
My H4 still works great, even has 48V phantom power for my Rode NT1A mics. It does a great job especially for a portable.

 

[pma]

So, that's how it works.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/unxg6s11yl0n26e/GMO27.mp3?dl=0

 

[MRC01]

Here's a recording I made a few years ago of a local brass quintet with my Zoom H4, using a pair of Rode NT1A mics. I put the mics on my pole in ORTF arrangement, 10-15 feet from the center of the players, about 5' off the ground. I velcroed the H4 to the mic pole using an external battery pack (also velcroed to the mic pole) to power the H4 through its external power plug. This makes recording easy because everything is on the pole which I can position anywhere.
http://mclements.net/Mike/audio/brassQuintet.flac
I find the ORTF arrangement gives a stable 3-D stereo image when played back on speakers. No compression or EQ. I recorded in 24 bit on the H4 and the only post-processing I did was to shift the amplitude to set peaks just below 0 dB without clipping or compression, then convert it to 16-bit with triangular dither.

 

[0bs3rv3r]

These devices are great. I have a Tascam DR-05. They are pocket replacement for all the things we used to do with those new fangled tape recorders when they were invented, then did all over again when they produced the more portable cassette recorders.

 

[bennybbbx]

I have this too. have you measure the frequency response and can you post ?

 

[Robin L]

I used a Tascam DR-05 for most of my needledrops. More than good enough for transferring old LPs and better than any other recorder as regards ease of use. Being able to make a digital file, dump into Audacity and massage with Click Repair resulted in the best LP to digital transfers I've made.

 

[goldenears]

I've got a Zoom H1, the predecessor to this one. I like it and it was quite cheap, but it does seem to have a fairly high noise level from the inbuilt mics. A lot of handling noise as well, but I guess that's probably unavoidable.

One day I'll wrap it in a quilt and do a recording to test how much noise there is.

 

[Phorize]

I’ve had an h4n for years. Never thought to measure it but got lots of great recordings done over the years ie conversation with the kids when they were young, woodland walks etc. I still really enjoy listening to them. Introducing an audio recorder into a situation seems less disruptive than a camera for some reason.

 

[goldenears]

I agree with this 100%.

I was going through what's on the card in my H1 the other day, and it really gave me a nice stereo sound effect, there were some recordings from a cafe with my partner, and it was just like being there again. Really captured the ambience of the place.

 

[cursive]

Nice purchase friend! I've listened to many an awesome live performance on youtube recorded with various zoom portable recorders. Amazing the tech packed into such a little device.