My Hubpage Review Of The H2 Zoom Recorder

While the Zoom Recorder isn't the very best handheld stereo recorder you can get I've seen a few professional models selling for 2 to 3 times as much. It's quite small (2.5 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches) but this Zoom Recorder is equipted with double the microphones as it's competitors. Those are two reasons why they're selling a lot of them.

Pricetag:

When it first came out it sold for a few hundred bucks but today you can get it for well under $200.

Some favorite features...

Dollar for dollar it really beats all other comparables.

Surround sound capability due to the multiple onboard microphones.

Small in-your-hand size - small in-your-wallet price

The disappointments are:

The display screen could have been a little larger.

It's audio limiter reacts on the slow side.

On a better note, the H2 Zoom Recorder is able to record many different resolutions of both MP3 and WAV audio. So, for those important events you can select the pro audio setting of 24-bit/96kHz. For a rehearsal you can use an mp3 setting so it's nice to have the option and save some memory if you want to.

The Zoom Recorder will be of interest to:

1. Anyone that wants to record seminars & conferences

2. Media at electronic news gatherings

3. Podcasting

4. Fans at musical performances

5. Songwriting sessions

6. Musicians rehearsals

7. Theatrical rehearsals

You gotta love the retro look of the front grill on the H2 recorder, kinda looks like an old forties microphone. Most people will be satisfied with all of it's popular features and there may be a few that some people won't even care for... but if you can find use for a metronome and guitar tuner then you're in for a pleasant surprise.

You can download audio from it as well. On a small device such as this it can be difficult to do some of the editing... but you can just plug it into your computer via the USB and edit away.

What they call the W-XY mic patterns, 4 mics and signal processing allows Front 90 cardioid, Rear 120 cardioid and 360 polar patterns.

This is a smart and unique feature of the H2 Zoom… quadruple mic capsule, which actually gives you various types of surround recording, including a format that stores 360° information onto 4 tracks which you can extract later into 5.1 surround sound. Put the H2 Zoom in the middle of a 3 piece band for instance and you would get a nice surround sound mix, drums in the back and guitars all around.

To complete this H series of small hand held recorders are Zoom's H1 which is the little brother with less features and a lower price tag and the big brother of the three being the H4 Zoom digital recorder.

For the price range this little hand held digital recorder will do the trick!

Check out my report of the H2 Zoom Digital Recorder on my Hub