Spotlight On . . . Edirol R-09 Portable MP3/WAV Digital Recorder

How can a compact, iPod-sized portable digital recorder with a pair of built-in stereo condenser mics possibly be any good for location recording? When it's an Edirol-R09. Holding the lightweight, plasticy device in the palm of your hand does not immediately inspire confidence. A few clean and well defined field recordings will change your mind however. Have students, lawyers, police and news reporters discovered the Edirol-R09 yet? Close examination reveals the presence of a headphone jack and both mic and line-in jacks. The Edirol R-09 can run on its AC adapter or (for hours) on a pair of AA batteries. The LCD user interface that's controlled by the main navigation button pad is highly intuitive, which makes configuration settings (and quick changes on the fly) easy and quick to accomplish. You can record in uncompressed WAV format or in a variety of MP3 quality levels including VBR. I was delighted by the excellent quality of the built-in stereo mics and also pleasantly surprised at the clean input using a Shure condenser mic via the external mic input. The built-in mic sensitivity can be switched between high and low gain. Line-in quality is also very good, offering excellent signal to noise ratio and broad compatibility with a wide range of input signals. Output to headphones and earphones is clean and well modulated. I found no switching noise in any of my recordings; just clean WAV and MP3 files suitable for import into Sound Forge or Audacity or whatever you use for audio editing. If you're looking for a portable digital recorder for almost any application, consider the Edirol-R09. 4 out of 5 stars