Olympus LS-10 is also looking pretty good. It's down to the Edirol and Olympus LS-10 for me now.

Hi Jay,

I have the Olympus and it's nice. I would suggest getting an external mic though. From what i've heard, unless you are recording a loud source, none of the inbuilt microphones are quite up to scratch, even with the sony PCM D50. I used to have a microtrack and was pleased with it except for the fact that you could not monitor what was coming in through the mics without recording, some people don't mind that but I find it annoying. The external mic that comes with it is surprisingly good though.

These sites have some good information:
http://www.wingfieldaudio.com/compare-portable-recorders.html
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/audio/portable-recorder-comparison/


Chris

See I was thinking about this, and if I was going to use external mics with it in future, say if i grabbed a shotgun mic, plugged that in, recorded some birds..I would really want to go for a recorder which has 48v phantom inputs right? Or else I might not be able to use the mic I want to without another preamp, does that sound right?

And in my price range I am only looking at the Zoom h4N and the Microtrack units..Between the 2, the zoom can be used on a mic stand and appears more sturdy.

Actually scratch that, with the fact most shotgun mics have internal battery power, I think I will go for the LS-10. Only going for that rather than the Ediro R-09HR cause I can get it cheaper, other than that I would say they are neck in neck.