Friday 10 February 2012

Panasonic RRXS400 Digital Audio Recorder Review

As a fledgling podcaster, a lot of the recordings that I make will be at home, which my trusty Blue Snowball microphone can handle with ease. However when you need to go out and about in order to record, it's not always practical to be carrying laptops and microphones with you.

There are many digital audio recorders out there in the marketplace, I opted for this model, as I work at a Panasonic dealer, and have found the quality of their recorders over the years to be very good.

This recorder stands out from the entry level models in the range as it offers extra functionality and a higher standard of recording quality compared to the basic recorders.

The RRXS400 has numerous recording modes, giving MP3 quality ranging from 32kbps to 320kbps or the option to record in linear PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) for higher quality again, with 44.1kHz and 48kHz recording modes on offer.

Of course recording in higher quality takes up more recording memory, the internal 2GB memory can store up to 3 hours of recording in PCM 44.1kHz mode and up to 135 and a half hours in 32kbps mode. If you want to expand the memory there is a micro SD card slot that allows for up to 16GB of extra recording space to be added.

The recorder has a built in stereo microphone, and there are line in and headphone jacks for connecting to external devices. The RRXS400 also has a USB connector (which also acts as a charger) to enable copying to and from a Mac or PC, as the machine supports WMA and MP3 playback it also doubles up as a music player.

There are options to edit on the recorder itself, which might be handy, you can divide, join and erase segments, but I think I prefer editing on the Mac.

Having had a brief play with it, I am really impressed with recording quality, it's hard to judge the recording quality through the recorder's in built loudspeaker, but when played back on the computer the results are excellent.

This will be a very handy little gadget to take when I have to travel in order to get my footage, and at £49.99 I think it's a real bargain.

No comments:

Post a Comment