Sony MZ-RH1: Field Recording

On to the torture test: the local shooting range. I’ve found that this is the absolute worst acoustic environment I’ve ever run across. The average gunshot is ~155db at ten feet. You’ve got a situation where the ambient sound level goes from 10db to 155db and back in less than a second, and since you’re in a concrete building, there are echoes and splashes everywhere.

I set up with an AT9841 single-point and started recording. The automatic level control obviously struggled with the dynamic changes, but still did much better than expected. I made a second recording by attenutating to a specific source and lowering the level manually.

One thing Sony finally fixed was the ability to adjust recording-levels on the fly, something only the Sharps could do previously. I can’t really think of any features they’ve omitted on this unit.

Both recordings surprised me. The first seemed to fluctuate a bit, meaning the reports were a bit garbled and intervening sounds like feet shuffling and people talking were muffled, but the soundstage was well-preserved, and everything was right where it was supposed to be. Excellent results for a “quickie” recording.

The second recording was even better. Since I’d lowered the gain, there was no distortion in the peaks, and although this meant the other sounds were very quiet, they were still clear (I can hear one guy yelling, “I think that’s one o’ them iPods!”).

On the way home, I turned off the stereo and let the unit sit on my passenger seat recording. Again, it picked up everything clearly and placed all the sounds in the right places (including the doppler-shift from the car passing me with the honking <40hz booty bass). There was no mechanical noise from the unit itself evident on the recording.

I’d previously charged the battery to 100% before heading out, and after about 2 hours of recording, I’d estimate I’d used less than 1/4 battery power. The convenience of being to upload these recordings to my computer so easily cannot be overstated.

I don’t know that this will replace my DR7 any time soon, but it certainly holds its own, which is impressive considering the Sharp is considered one of the best recorders on the market some five years after its release.