Item : B001QJOI8E Customer Reviews Not All Good by .. Plensch (IN, USA) I beg to differ a little bit here. I bought a DR-07 44 days ago and it had three problems. The level meters would cut by 24db and then come back up 24db randomly about every twenty to thirty seconds while the audio input was constant. There was a mysterious tone that was recorded on a couple of field recordings that can only be described as some sort of "test tone". Several times when switching the unit on it had become disabled with just the peak level light on. The only way the alleviate this was to remove the batteries and then put them back in. I emailed Tascam and they haven't been very helpful at all. They deny that there is a problem whatsoever and told me to exchange it where I bought it. I did exchange it and the new one already shows the varying level meter defect. Aside from the problems of a technical nature, the unit DOES NOT handle extremes of bass very well at all. It will distort well short of peak level on low bass frequencies. Those things considered, it does record non-bass-intensive stuff in the field very well. I sincerely wish that I could give a "gushing" review like the folks above about this unit. Unfortunately I have found it to be well short of professional grade. Exactly what I was looking for by .. Dawn Gaylord (Madison, WI) I've been looking a long time for a relatively inexpensive device that I can use to record my students during orchestra class and lessons, with the possibility of posting those recordings to our website. I got the DR-07 a few days ago and so far, it is exactly what I was looking for. It's extremely easy to use (almost intuitive, after a quick browse through the manual), and by plugging my classroom stereo into the headphone port, I can play back recordings immediately for the entire class. I have yet to experiment with all the recording qualities, but I found that when recording the entire group with MP3 32kb, the sound quality is... unacceptable (as is to be expected, really, especially just using the built-in mics). It was fine, however, when I recorded just myself. MP3 64kb was a little better, and WAV 16-bit sounded pretty great. There are a lot more features on this thing than I expected and I haven't tried more than a couple of them. I would have to say I got what I was looking for and then some, at a pretty decent price. great for the price, but its not professional sounding... by .. S. Hartman () I just returned mine. Simply put, its a great little product, and for $175 you just can't find a better value. But you get what you pay for, and you get a nice little recording device, perfect for most applications, epically recording musical ideas while away from the studio. However, for low level recordings such as acoustic guitar, look closer at the Sony PCM-D50, that's what I'm switching to for my use. Here are my pros and cons of the DR07: pros: great price ($175 guitar center) small light weight records any combination of 16/24bit 44.1k/48k sample rate has built in mics very easy to use takes SD cards to expand recording time. records either mp3 or wave files. sound is directional, and records the best from directly in front. Comes with a wind screen. Takes AA batteries, easy to find and use. cons: Mic pre-amps are VERY noisy: when recording an interview or acoustic guitar, you can hear the hiss through it... lots of hiss on low volume recordings like that. Lots of handling noise (more on that below), NO Speaker! So you have to bring headphones to check your recordings. The windscreen looks and feels cheap, its just a piece of shipping foam cut out to fit on top. Buttons feel cheap, memory card and USB access door feels cheap, I'm sure after a short while of use, it will break off. Handling noise: any slight touch of the unit make a loud sound when using on-board mics, Poor quality limiter: the limiter cuts back so hard that when you just touch the unit, or get a loud pop from your voice, it cuts all the way down to zero, and then back up, so you get this very dramatic but short cut out of sound. Its very annoying. I had to turn off the limiter to use it, because every time i touched the unit to move it, it would cut out for a second. This was during an interview where I had the recording level up. I was doing an interview and had to set the internal mic sensitivity to high and the gain to 8 or 9 (out of 10) just to get a good level on my subject sitting about 6 feet across from me. There was a lot of noise (hiss) too. Too much for someone picky, and looking for clean sound. Maybe an external mic would have been better, but you're still using the internal pre-amps which are very noisy. I have to say that for the price, if you are looking for something to record band rehearsal, practice, or song ideas, its perfect! Maybe if you had a pair of mics you would get good results from a live rock concert (rock, not jazz or classical, because of the hiss in the background.... the rock music would drown that out) So 5 out of 5 because it is perfect for what it is, but its not a solid feeling professional piece of gear with high quality preamps, its just a portable recorder for every day recording... professional sound guys would be disappointed. I would recommend this to my musician friends who want something to record scratch song ideas while away from a real studio, or someone looking to get into recording as a hobby, and play around with recordings. Hope that helps people out there. We have a winner! by .. Scott A. Conway () I finally have this fine little solid state recorder in my hands, and I must say it does nearly anything I could want from it. Sound quality, especially using the 44.1KHz/48KHz and WAV16bit/WAV24bit settings, is as good as you can get without having to fork over considerably more for something more professional grade, such as the Sony PCMD50 (~$500) or a far more expensive device (sorry, forgot the name) that costs $1,500USD. As expected, the integral microphones are decent for recording up close, but I would definitely recommend using an external for recording bands, lecture halls, or other roomy areas where the sound source may be some distance from the unit. That is also where this little gadget really shows its stuff, as it is configurable for condenser microphones that require a powered (think "phantom" power) jack, dynamic microphones that have their own power source (I have an Audio Technica stereo mike that uses a single AA battery to operate), and even a line in jack for recording from a mixing desk or other device with a line out jack. You can even slow down or speed up the recordings after they are made, with no pitch change, although I did notice that the slowed recordings exhibited noticeable artifacting at the slower settings, but that is no real problem, as that feature is mainly a musician's tool for learning how to play a fast or complicated part, NOT for listening enjoyment. The 2GB SD card that it comes with almost has the full capability of file size that this unit can handle, which is 2GB, or ~3hours and 24minutes when recording 44.1KHz/16-bit. The 2GB card holds just over 3 hours, so anyone wanting to max out the recording file size limit will need a 4GB card. In fact, that 2GB file size limit is the only possible area of concern for anyone using this, at least if you want to capture a lengthy performance in lossless WAV format. I did not experiment with the on-the-fly MP3 recording it does, but if you set it to 128KBPS, you can expect over 10 times as much recording time, due to the compression ratio. Of course, the batteries would likely give out before that ~30 hours of nonstop recording, so anyone wanting to do that would be advised to buy the Tascam AC adapter also sold here. Oh, I also LOVE the ease with which Tascam made it to set the levels, where you simply hit the record button once, which turns on the microphones without starting recording, allowing you to listen on headphones to adjust those levels, then hit record again to start the recording. So simple, even a young kid could do it. As a suggestion, I would advise anyone wanting to use this for recording from a distance to purchase a decent condenser omnidirectional "lapel" style stereo microphone, with the little Griffon unit being a particularly nice one, especially for the money. I can't wait to really put this through its paces. ***EDIT*** Update: It turns out that this handy little recorder neatly circumvents the above mentioned 2GB file size limit by simply automatically starting a new audio file once it reaches that 2GB limit on the first file, continuing on until the SD card is full, or if you press stop. This means that you will be able to record approximately 53hours 20minutes onto a 32GB SD card! Naturally, the way to handle the multiple files created on the fly by this recorder is to append all of them in order on your hard drive, naturally using an operating system whose file system has no such 2GB limit, which includes XP and Linux, among some others. I have also been able to test this little gadget, and I am quite happy with the performance and quality of the recordings. The interface is intuitive, and the controls are quite easy to use, even those for dividing files directly on the unit, which makes it quite handy for slicing off removing trailing garbage on recordings, which can then be deleted before downloading the saved portion of audio onto your computer. Slick, great sound quality, small, and - yes - updateable. Yes, there IS a small firmware update out there already for this that addresses some minor issues, and the update process is quite easy as well. I definitely appreciate a manufacturer making their hardware updateable for future-proofing their products. I feel perfectly comfortable in giving this five stars, and I would have given it six, if Amazon had that rating available. GREAT solid state recorder! Incredible performance by .. Marc De Landsheer () I bought a Tascam DR-07 , while I was looking for an MP3 player, that records from microphone and line-input as well. It uses SD cards. Sadly there is no AC-adaptor included. So I bought a universal device which I setted to 5 V. It is very lightweight and fits into any pocket. I transferred some MP3's to the card via my PC and put the card back into the DR-07. I hooked up the DR-07 to my Rodec mixing device and the result is simply fantastic ! The output is very distortionless and noisefree. Via a serious headphone, the result is also very good. I did some recording from the built in stereo microphones and this is also very very good... simply professional ! I also did record from the line input socket, and this result is also very good, allthow a larger Solid State or cd-recorder will give better results. (which is normal). The unit has a handy "lock" knob , that prevents unintentionally pushed buttons... There is no built-in speaker. This is maybe a drawback for reporters that use it as a microphone recording device. As a pure mp3 player , for which I initially bought this unit, it is an incredible performer... and you can change the SD-cards, so I have an unlimited number of possible tracks in my reach. The overall audio quality of this small unit is simply stunning ! Price/performance ratio is very high. Thank you Tascam.