David Schulman - Nov 20, 2007 6:00 pm (#9 Total: 10)


First of all, Jeff -- I have to say a huge thanks for all of your wonderful expertise and advice. The Tools column is an amazing resource for so many of us, and you (and Barbara, too) have also saved many a neck via the AirDaily, too. Mil gracias!

So here's my Q. I've just purchased an HD-P2 from a local shop to replace the Sony minidisc recorder that's served me so well for 8 years (!). One reason I held off so long was that the Marantz recorders that were the dominant/standard flash recorders seemed to have hissy preamps.

I thought the Tascam would probably be my answer, but in testing this unit with my AT835b shotgun mic, I'm getting a certain amount of hiss. Not egregious, but it's there — noticeably more so than in the mp3 of the cardiod AKG mic on the Tools page. I've tried two different cords, and have set the Tascam's settings to mono right, 16 bit, 44.1 khz.

Am wondering — is there anything I should try that would reduce the hiss? Do other mics play better with the HD-P2? Or is it possible I've got a unit with less than perfect preamps and should return it (I have a couple more days to do so) and perhaps order a hotwired version from Oade?

Any suggestions much appreciated!

best,
-David Schulman

David Schulman - Nov 22, 2007 12:14 am (#10 Total: 10)


A day's more research, including a particularly helpful conversation with the venerable Doug Oade, now suggests that my hiss issue with the Tascam HD-P2 likely originated with the older mics I was using (the AT835b shotgun and AT825 stereo mic). Have been told that using more recently designed mics (including AT897, Rode NTG-2 and Sennheiser ME66/K6) should greatly improve things, and reduce hiss. Will report back here in case the problem is not solved by one of these mics.
-D