gpiegari

I'd say they sound rather similar. They use the same RF condenser technology and I have found my 8050 to tolerate the same weather extremes that my 50 always performed flawlessly in. The extremely compact form factor of the 8050 is the real difference. The 50 has a low-cut and pad built in. These features are added to the 8000 series with the rather expensive inline addition of the MZF module. Glen

I am very pleased with my MKH-8040 and 8050's. If Sennheiser would ever release an 8030, I would be ecstatic. Glen

I'm a pretty big fan of the fingerless gloves that have a mitten "convertible". They are windblock fleece and have a reasonable size gauntlet which is critical to seal the wrist area from gusts. I got that at REI a few years back. Heading outside to rural MD/PA for the next three days so I'll let you know if I'm still happy with them...

Strange looks from passengers aside, I kinda like flying with the Pelican 1700. They are trying very hard NOT to lose that piece of luggage. Often they hold it at the luggage counter and page me for pickup rather than let it do the merry go round. I miss the days of just carrying the pole on.

Do your search for "latex sheaths".

OK perhaps "messy" is an overstatement. I don't like LTC in my audio path (though I've never had a problem with SD mixers). Menu: <replace right> is certainly tidier than the hard patch, route re-assign... Glen

This has been discussed. It's my understanding SD is well aware of the request and it may be possible on future firmware. Until then, loop TC out from the lemo, into an input and assign to aux track. A tad messy but it certainly works.

Good luck with it John and thanks for the update. Please continue to share the experience; it's valuable info for those of us in the states with Ambient TC kit. Glen

That's the beauty of it; the more you travel and experience difficult and exotic locals, the more comfortable you may become with the challenges they entail. This should not imply complacency. It's through experience that you learn what questions to ask, who to trust, how to verify. Glen

Certainly some nice refinements. I like the access to track name edits from the input settings screen however, it seems more critical to access my track LIST here than to edit.

Sawrab is correct that the MKH-70 is used for all REALITY on Survivor but the tribal council, the challenges, and some of the rewards rely on LAVs (trams). Having been a boom swinger for the last seven seasons on that show has fostered much of my praises for the MKH-70. We are almost always near breaking surf, folks walking on crunchy coral, at great distance to avoid shadows... the 70 shines and often in the worst conditions of rain and humidity.

Off-axis rejection, particularly in the low end, is what makes the CS-3 shine. Also it's lack of proximity effect. It shines in digging a voice out of a noisy space and does a great job in long reverberant spaces. It sounds a little on overly sibilant females, and it's self noise is pretty high. I must state that I have an older CS-3 and I believe the "e" model improved the noise spec.

I have two Lexar 1000x CF cards that work fine in my 788 and 744. When I load it into the 664, the machine asks to format it, it formats, and will record. After a power cycle, it won't recognize the card and again asks to format. Needless to say, I'm keeping the Lexar cards away from the 664. Using recommended media, the machine has been flawless. Glen

I absolutely love my MKH-70; One of my favorite mics. Excellent rejection, great reach, environmentally robust, and relatively lightweight for a full-length shotgun. I suspect many are sold because many folks are relying more heavily on wireless LAVs and just not using them as often as they thought. Working alone and mixing over-the-shoulder can be tough if you're swinging a MKH-70 but it's often the right choice. Glen

I forgot to mention New Endian Freq Finder.

There has also been some discussion about 7506 knock-offs floating around with all sorts of quality control and sonic issues.

The 664 certainly is finicky about CF cards. I had ordered two Lexar 1000x UDMA 7 cards back when the machine was announced (yes, I was that excited). It doesn't like them. Fortunately, they seem very stable on my 788t so I just rotated stock (SanDisk Extreme Pro UDMA 7 working fine in the 664). Glen

Rastorder MB cart. SD 664.

Now that I think about it, if lectro is willing to get involved in color options (the items already come in "Lectro blue"), I could see an interest in colored packages that include a colored bezel for 411 or SR mount and a colored belt clip for transmitter. There are plenty of OCD sound folks that would love that.

After several days on the job with the 664: 1 NP-1 has run 664 and 1-3 Lectro 411a all day for a fairly typical day. No discernable heat buildup whatsoever. Freq scans on blk 22 and 26 are clean and exact same with 664 off/on/rec/plybk. The ONLY anomaly I have noticed thus far is that tone set to oscillate L will pulse the outputs but not the headphone monitor. Very happy with this machine. Glen

Just so you're clear; the 664 does have individual level control for the L/R mix bus and the AUX1/AUX2 mix buss. Glen

Nexto drives are a little pricy, but would work to copy files across media sources (CF and SD) as well as field archiving on it's own drive. I've used them on docs and shows with extended time in the bush (no laptop, little reliable power). Production owned them but I will likely buy a few now as the SD 664 changes media management for me. http://www.nextodiusa.com/product/1501/en_nvs1501.html Glen

Whatever works and I'm all for low cost alternatives. Just be careful and check the products material; Many folks have latex allergies... Glen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siu6JYqOZ0g&feature=share

Energizer Lithium AA's are $1.75 a piece if you do >96 which I find a reasonable lot. http://www.batteriesandbutter.com Glen