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Olof

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Posts posted by Olof

  1. I really like the Rupert Neve Designs 500 series module preamp. It's called 511. It's pretty clean without being sterile, and well – there's just something wonderful about the sound. The variable high-pass filter is very handy, and – compared to other 500-series module preamps – the price is not too bad. Especially for what you get. It's got a colouring circuit with variable settings. If you're interested in working more with different kinds of colouring of the sound, the TK-audio SP501 and the Cranborne Audio Camden 500 might also be worth looking into. For absolute "clean" there's the Weiss A1. It's pricey, and/but it's got a built in de-esser. If you want to go 19", ELBERG-ELT is a good bet. Elberg used to make the consoles for the Danish Public Broadcaster, before they went digital. He makes a stereo preamp "clean"-style called MP2, and a "mojo" one with a built in EQ called 1073. Great build quality, great sound, and relatively friendly prices. In the field I use my MKH-50 with a Sonosax R4 recorder, with very pleasing results ... and/but for sound quality / versatility / price – the Sonosax M2D2 seems like a very good way to go.

  2. On 12/27/2020 at 12:45 AM, axel said:

    Hi Olof, I'm a little late to chime in, but there are a few "specialities" you might want to know about your SX-R4:

     

    - CF card: the thing is a matter of firmware. The initial release in 2007 or 2008 was indeed with only "mix"tracks to CF. Current Firmware allows for all tracks to CF.   I'd recommend to upgrade to the latest version for hassle free operation with UDMA cards.

     

    - There is a SD to CF adapter made by Sonosax specifically for the SX-R4. With this you can run up to a 512 GB SDHC Sandisk extreme pro card. I do use my R4 also as a direct AES backup for my Cantar X3 and just leave it recording with 8 tracks throughout the day. When the HDD is full, the SX-R4 continues recording seamlessly to SD only.

     

    -The original 30 Gb HDD is quite small, but mine is still functional. Noizboyz in the Netherlands offered an SSD upgrade 2 years ago, but they say there is no more parts available (I wanted to upgrade early this year)

     

    - SXR4 is reliable and easy to record. There is not many features, so no errors to commit either, just a good sounding easy recorder.

     

    - The playback engine is a bit clumsy and unusual to operate, but if you don't have to use it too often you can get along with it.

     

    - Metadata: are limited to scene and take numbers and some indicators like "circled", "wild" or "no good", but metadata handling is hidden inside the menus and slows you down.

     

    - Power: SX-R4 is the most power efficient recorder ever (big plus!). An external halfsize audioroot battery (49Whs) will carry it through most of a long day. 6 AA cells the inside the internal battery compartement give you another 5 hours, 6 Lithium disposable AA's would go for up to 7 hs. But careful, Lithium cells in the inner compartement are interpreted as "first choice power" until their voltage drops below 1,5 V , so they get depleted first an only then the external power will be drawn (no switch to select beteen intl and extl power). With NiMH cells in the inside compartement, SX-R4 will switch to internal powering only when it does not see external powering. Power switching between intl and extl goes seemlessly even during recording, just make sure the inner battery compartement is properly closed making a safe contact, which is somewhat of an issue with my very first batch recorder.

     

    - Mixing: There is no downmix possible! You can just record ISO's and select for a coice of summed channels for the 2 outputs or your phones. This is not state of the art for modern location sound, but good for use as a 2nd unit or ambiance recorder.

     

    - Channel count: You have great 4 Mic pre's with georgeous transparent limiters and 2 line inputs, which by no means should be overloaded (can destroy audio on other tracks too!)

    With a proper input cable you can add up to 8 digital inputs too. The coice of inputs can be selected for cannel pairs only and is rather fixed which goes where.

     

    - Form factor: SX-R4 is very light and small, but just big enough for easy handling.

     

     


    Many thanks Axel for the excellent info. It made it very easy to make up my mind and buy the R4. I've been using it for a couple of weeks now, and I'm incredibly happy with it. It such a friendly little machine. Its low weight is a great advantage compared to the SX-42 /PMD/661 combo I recorded onto before. The R4 is so much lighter, and I'm much more inclined to take it with me. And the batteries seem to last forever! 
     

  3. 34 minutes ago, Patrick Tresch said:

    Is that right? I had mine stolen 2 years ago so I can't remember this but I was pretty shure it was able to record more tracks on the CF. 

    12 hours ago, ramallo said:

     

    -The SXR4 record all the channels to the CF

     

     

    Many thanks to Patrick and Ramallo for clearing this up. This is what it says in the manual: 

    • 8 tracks on HardDisk plus 2 track or Mirroring on a CompactFlash Card

    Which I obviously got wrong. Thus – this means, I presume, that I can record 8 channels onto the hard drive as well as the CF card. Or 8 channels onto the harddrive and an additional two channels onto the CF card. In any case, if it's 8 or 10 channels do not concern me too much. I'll be happy with 8 (since I come from the 744T), especially if I can record them onto the CF-card.

     

    I also noted that I mixed up the development date of the SX-R4 with the SX-42. The SX-42 is from 2003 and the SX-R4 from 2007-2008.

    Is there anyone who's compared the SX-R4 converters to those of the SX-R4+, or to any of the Sound Devices offerings?

     

  4. I have been offered to buy a Sonosax SX-R4 at a good price.  I presume that the preamps will be wonderful. I have two Sonosax SX42 mixers, and much prefer their preamps to the ones in my Sound Devices 744t. I am bit concerned about recording on a hard drive with moveable parts (the SX-R4 only records two channels onto an CF-card), but reckon I can put in an SSD. How about the A-D converters? Considering that it's a machine from 2003? And are there any quirks I should be aware of? The later model, SX-R4+, seems  much lauded on this forum. But at the moment, I can't afford it. Many thanks!

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