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Some of our customers have asked how M-Audio's MicroTrack 24/96 recorder compares to our PDAudio recording system.
PDAudio (priced at between $350 and $1200, depending on its configuration) and MicroTrack 24/96 (priced at under $400) are aimed at different segments of the audio recording market. PDAudio is aimed at the audio professional (sound studios, location recordists, Foley and sound effects recording professionals, radio and TV professionals) and semi-professional (musicians and sophisticated hobbyists), and offers the highest available sound quality and essentially unlimited features. In contrast, MicroTrack 24/96 is a recorder aimed at the sound-quality-conscious mass market, a one-purpose recording device with limited recording quality and features.
The comparison can be broken into two parts:
As MicroTrack 24/96's technical specifications and test results become available, we will post direct comparison charts.
Core Sound recommends its Mic2496 for use with PDAudio. Mic2496 is a truly professional mic pre-amp/A-to-D converter; all of its specifications reflect an audio professional's expectations. Its noise level is down below -135 dB, providing true 22+ bits of dynamic range and inaudible noise. Its frequency response is flat to within one or two tenths of a dB between 20 Hz and 40 KHz. Its distortion levels are almost immeasurable. Its channel separation is greater than 95 dB across the frequency band.
MicroTrack 24/96's published specifications show that its mic pre-amp and A-to-D converter provide only 16- or 17-bit performance. Noise is down only 98 dB for the 1/8-inch input (a bit more than 16-bit performance) and 100 dB for the 1/4-inch TRS inputs (a bit less than 17-bit performance). Frequency response is flat within +/- 0.5 dB for the 1/8-inch unbalanced input and +/- 0.3 dB for the 1/4-inch TRS balanced inputs.
With MicroTrack 24/96 not having been released yet and with no independent test results available, we can't know for certain how it will actually perform, but our experience points to this:
First, based on the MicroTrack 24/96's retail and wholesale price point and our estimate of the profit margin that M-Audio must receive from each sale, we can determine the cost of manufacturing the device and how much of that is allocated to the mic pre/A-to-D and phantom supply.
Based on its pricing, we expect that its mic pre-amp and A-to-D converters will cost M-Audio roughly the same as the corresponding components in a a mass market MD recorder or perhaps, if they took some care with the design, a recent Sony DAT recorder. Its performance will likley be comparable too. The published specifications bear this out.
Since M-Audio included a true 48 Volt phantom supply (how many milliamps per channel it will be able to supply is still an unknown), that costs money too and eats into the bottom line of how much the entire device can cost. Cost drives performance.
Second, this is new territory for M-Audio. They have never built a portable, low voltage, battery-powered mic pre or mic pre/A-to-D, much less a complete recorder. Their only mic pre/A-to-D products were the Duo/Quattro and Mobile Pre USB. Only the Duo was a stand-alone device.
Every one of their mic pres to date has required AC power. Even the wall warts had AC outputs. It's a challenge to design and build a low voltage DC-powered one that has low noise and sounds good. For our Mic2496 for example, we went through roughly six re-designs until we were satisfied.
MicroTrack 24/96 runs on a Li-ion or Li-Polymer battery. That's a low voltage supply. To get that to supply a quiet 48 Volt Phantom Power supply is not easy.
MicroTrack 24/96 also has a backlit LCD display. Displays are electrically very noisy, as are microprocessors, display controllers, programmable gate arrays, interface controllers and memories. The ideal solution for controlling electrical noise is to heavily shield the noisy circuits, to separate them in space, and to use more expensive design approaches like multi-layer printed circuit boards with separate digital/analog/power ground planes. The MicroTrack 24/96, by having its mic pre-s and A-to-Ds in very close proximity to the display and the processor/memory, will have a devil of a time keeping that noise from getting into the mic pre. That alone makes us pretty sure that MicroTrack 24/96's noise performance will not be up to Mic2496's specs; its noise performance will more likely be closer to the 16-bit range than the 24-bit. The published specifications again bear this out.
For comparison with recent products from other manufactureres., see the user reports on the Marantz PMD670 and 671 recorders. The folks at Marantz are pros at manufacturing professional portable audio recorders; they've been doing it for years. Those units are much larger than the MicroTrack 24/96 (allowing for more physical separation between the very noise-sensitive mic pre-amp and the noisy digital devices) and they're priced at double its retail (allowing use of higher quality parts); even so, their mic pre/A-to-D performance are clearly not in the pro audio range.
So it's a pretty safe prediction that MicroTrack 24/96 won't have a pro quality, low-noise, mic pre/A-to-D. But it'll likely be good enough for most users who have also been happy with corresponding functions in their MD and DAT recorders.
Only PDAudio running Gidluck Mastering's Live2496 software offers hot-swapping of recording media, allowing essentially unlimited continuous recording time. Only PDAudio with Live2496 allows for timed recording duration and timed auto-start. Only PDAudio with Movie 24/96 or Luci allows for mono recording. Only PDAudio with Luci allows detailed audio editing and publishing directly to the Internet. Only PDAudio with Luci or Vito Sound Editor allows for WAV file editing on your PDA. Only PDAudio with various software applications allows recording to the widest variety of sound file formats, including WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MP2, and many others. Only PDAudio with Movie 24/96 or Luci provides time stamping of cues, cue annotation and cue sheets.
Only PDAudio with Mic2496 allows for recording at 192 KS/s. Only PDAudio with Mic2496 allows you to record while passing on a digital signal (optical or coax) for a daisy chain of other digital tapers. Only PDAudio with Mic2496 (with detent option) allows for a calibrated, repeatable gain setting; necessary for precise acoustics measurements. Only PDAudio lets you record directly from a coaxial or an optical digital audio feed provided by others to your un-augmented PDA -- no mic pre or A-to-D is required. PDAudio with Live 2496 will soon have record-time FLAC compression to potentially double your storage space.
Only PDAudio can record digital audio to a PDA (e.g., HP iPAQ 3800-series) commonly available for less than $100. PDAudio lets you use the highest quality outboard mic pre/A-to-D using either coaxial or optical interfaces so that you'll get the benefit of those 24-bit word widths and high sample rates. PDAudio essentially has no limitations as to media size -- when 16 GB SD cards eventually become available, PDAudio will likely be able to use them immediately. PDAudio will soon be able to use USB 2.0 hard drives for 24/96 and 24/192 with the new PDAs that provide that function. PDAudio is already able to stream audio via Wi-Fi/802.11b directly to a network drive -- no on-board mass storage is necessary, and when the higher speed 802.11g interfaces are available, PDAudio will likely be able to use them immediately.
Only PDAudio has a full color display. Only PDAudio provides all of the non-recording Pocket PC functions that a Windows Mobile PDA supplies, including telephone, Video and MP3 player, Internet browsing, local area network access, games, spreadsheets, word processing, GPS navigation and many others. And the drivers for PDAudio are essentially open source (or otherwise easily available) so that folks who want to write their own applications and to add functions can.
For only $350, PDaudio can also be configured to only record digital audio signals. In this configuration, it does not provide a microphone or Line level input; it only provides digital audio inputs. It provides all of the professional flexibility described above at a price that's even lower than MicroTrack 24/96.
In contrast to PDAudio, MicroTrack 24/96 is intended to be a good quality, small and simple-to-use recorder for the mass market, and we expect that it will meet those goals. Its feature set is limited to those needed for basic recording. For those who need a simple recorder and don't need professional sound quality or PDAudio's broad feature set, MicroTrack 24/96 will be the correct choice.
PDAudio, in contrast, provides truly professional performance and unlimited flexibility. We therefore expect that PDAudio will be the choice of most audio professionals and semi-professionals.