Marantz PMD680 Review
Marantz/Superscope has for many years supplied radio reporters with workhorse recorders which used analog cassettes. Long after the incursions of DAT and MiniDisc recorders, these machines have continued to be useful tools. Their form factor, about the size of a trade paperback book, has proven to be a practical platform for the connections and controls reporters need.
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More recently the company has made forays into digital recording, using a similar chassis. For a short time they marketed a DAT recorder, the PMD-700, now discontinued. But they’ve introduced a stereo recorder using MiniDiscs (the PMD-650) and a mono recorder using PC card storage (the PMD-680). I examined the PMD-680 to see what solid state storage recording has in store for us.
The layout of the 680 is familiar at first: metering and other displays are on the front edge, external power goes to the left side, and audio inputs and outputs are on the right side. But instead of a tape hatch on the top, there’s a slit in the front edge that permits insertion of a memory card. Insertion is manual, and the card is also ejected with muscle power pushing a button. There are no motors in this black box!
That's the Holy Grail of solid state recording: no motors, and as few moving parts as possible. The PMD-680 takes field recording for reporters into the computer age, using the memory cards that have made laptop computers and digital cameras possible.
But the absence of motors doesn’t keep this machine from needing power. There’s a significant amount of DSP horsepower under the hood, and that takes juice.
The PMD-680 can run directly on wall power, converted through a wall wart to 1 amp @ 13 volts DC. This will power the recorder or charge an optional internal NiCd battery pack, but can’t do both at once. When fully charged, the NiCd pack is rated for about 1 hour 45 minutes of operation. And since NiCd batteries suffer from memory effect, your mileage may vary if you don’t take the trouble to completely discharge it before recharging.
The other battery options are to use 8 AA alkaline batteries for 1.5 to 2.5 hours of use (hint: the bunny wins the race), or search out some of the newly-available AA size rechargeable NiMH batteries for 3 hours of run time. These NiMH’s will need their own external charger, but at least you can charge one set while you’re using the machine on wall power or running on another set of batteries.
If you’re willing to lug around a couple of extra pounds of external power pack, lead-acid rechargeable solutions can be had from third party suppliers. This should dramatically increase the available run time.
Why is this machine so power hungry? Its run time is substantially shorter than the current crop of consumer grade MiniDisc and DAT recorders that many reporters use, and even 15% or so shorter than its sibling the PMD-650 MiniDisc recorder.
Part of the answer lies in the storage medium, and in the DSP power needed to encode audio for efficient storage.
PC memory cards are still pretty pricey compared to hard disk storage, tapes or MiniDiscs. For example, some of the big hard drives now being sold for personal computers have dropped under $4.00 per Gigabyte (GB). Two-hour stereo DAT tapes hold about 1.3 GB of audio for about $5.00; MiniDiscs can squeeze about 74 minutes of stereo or 148 minutes of mono into 128 MB of space for about $3.00 using ATRAC compression.
In comparison, the memory cards currently approved for the 680 are hovering around $3.00 per Megabyte (MB). A 1.2 GB card, the largest storage currently approved for the PMD-680, is about $3000, which is more than twice the cost of the recorder!
To make efficient use of expensive storage media, MPEG Layer 2 (MP2) encoding is available in the PMD-680. Because sound quality degrades as the encoding rate gets lower, Marantz gives you six different choices, ranging from uncompressed 16 bit 48 kHz sampling (768 kbps for a mono signal) down to 32 kbps MP2 encoding.
Rather than making you reboot the machine and reset the submenus every time you want to change recording parameters, the PMD-680 cleverly lets you choose via a submenu the three of those six you want to have available. Then you can use an easily-accessed hardware switch on top of the machine to select from those three options. But if you want to idiot-proof the machine to record at only one quality level by setting the same parameters for all three switch positions, the software prevents you from doing that.
That 1200 MB card mentioned above can hold nearly four hours of mono recording at the PMD-680’s best quality 768 kbps rate, but at the stingiest 32 kbps rate it could hold over eighty hours!
Smaller capacity cards can be purchased, starting at 16 MB, with similar ratios. A 16 MB card can hold an hour of recordings at the 32 kbps encoding, but less than five minutes at the full quality uncompressed rate.
Check www.marantz.com before you buy any storage cards. While Marantz says all cards of the appropriate type should play back, some cards may not accept data fast enough to record properly OK on the PMD-680. A list of certified compatible cards is on their Website, and more cards are still being tested for certification. The cards OK’d in the printed manual max out at 440 MB, but the Website shows approved models in excess of 1GB.
The memory prices listed above are for late 2000 buyers. Market forces are continuing to lower the price of memory on PCMCIA and Flash Memory cards.
It’s possible that the recently-introduced one-gigabyte IBM Microdrive Compact Flash format storage cards may be approved for use with the PMD-680 in the future. That would drop the cost of storage from $3.00 per MB to about 50 cents, but the miniature hard drive cards have higher power consumption that would run the batteries down about 20% faster than the solid state cards.
A year or two from now, the cost of media for the PMD-680 will be much less of an obstacle, and higher capacity cards may lessen the need to use severe data compression on recordings.
Whether a given encoding rate will give you acceptable sound quality depends on your use. If you’re taping for transcription purposes, even the lowest quality rate may work for you. But for good broadcast quality, stay away from the lowest ranges. NPR News tries where possible to keep MP2 encodings at 128 kbps per channel or higher. Some of our reporters’ files get encoded down to 64 kbps or even lower to speed transmissions from the field, but there’s a quite noticeable quality penalty.
As always, the deciding factor is, “compared to what?” If the only other alternative to using MP2 encoding is to transmit your recording as analog audio on a phone line from a distant location, then any setting that sounds better than the phone line will be an improvement.
With the most aggressive encoding, MP2 at 32kbps, even this comparison is arguable. This extreme amount of data compression gives better frequency response and signal-to-noise ratio than an analog phone line transmission would, but introduces many audible artifacts that make the sound swirl around and sound unstable. It can be less intelligible than the analog phone line, even though some of its specs look better on paper than the phone line does.
If full studio voice quality is desired, then MP2 at 128 kbps or higher is the safest way to go. This gets you six times as much storage time as the uncompressed recording option, but still yields good sounding results.
(The choice of different recording compression rates will not affect your battery life, which is still measured in hours of recording or playback time.)
Now, if all you’re going to do is dub cuts out of these recordings in real time back at the station, as you’ve done with older machines, then a PC card recorder like the PMD-680 may not have much allure. The relative expense of the media and the hassle of the power-hungry machine are significant hurdles to overcome.
But if you want to get your recordings into a laptop or desktop computer—QUICKLY, without waiting for real-time loading of long files—then the PC card approach offers some major advantages. Pop the card out of the recorder, pop it in a card-slot-equipped computer, and presto! Your recordings appear on your computer screen as sound files. (Make sure you stop the recording, and let the PMD-680 finish updating the Table of Contents, before you eject the card! Otherwise you’ll lose all the recordings on that card. )
With appropriate software you can listen to your recordings in your computer playing directly off the card. Or you can copy the files to the computer’s internal hard drive in a tiny fraction of real time. (This is also a good way to make backup copies of your recordings so you can erase that expensive card and use it again!) You can also edit a file with the computer, and then save the edited version to the computer’s internal drive.
This direct movement of sound files can also mean bypassing the analog sound inputs and outputs of your computer, which avoids the noise and distortion that could be added to sound being transferred in real time into the computer.
Once files are in the computer—whether they’re copies on the internal hard disk or the originals on the PC card—they can also be sent to other users on a LAN. You can deliver the soundfiles to remote locations as email attachments or as uploads via FTP protocols if your computer has a modem or other connection to the Internet. (While the PMD-680 has a telephone jack, its only use is for recording a phone conversation or sending analog audio out over a phone line. The recorder is not set up to do modem-style data connections on its own.)
This is another area where file size and data-compressed encoding have an impact. Smaller size files transfer faster. If your computer’s only connection to the remote location is a dialup modem, you may only be able to send data at about 4 or 5 kilobytes per second. At that rate, would you rather send uncompressed audio that takes 15 times real time? Or a data-compressed version that could be transferred in close to real time?
We can see some of the advantages of the new machine in transmission and postproduction. But how does the PMD-680 stack up against its ancestors as a basic field recorder? Pretty well, it turns out!
The main mike input for the machine is a balanced XLR female connector, far more rugged than the miniplugs that consumer recorders use. A second jack is provided, of the unbalanced quarter-inch variety, if you don’t want to use XLR cords or if you just want to use the same old cords from your Sony TCD5M. Only one jack can be active at a time; a switch on top of the machine lets you choose which to use.
There’s a minor annoyance on the new PMD-680 that hearkens back to older Marantz history. When Marantz introduced its first cassette recorder with an XLR mike input jack, the PMD-222, reporters rejoiced that they could have a more substantial connection than the mini jack on the PMD-221. But that joy turned sour when they found that early production units of the new model had worse sound quality on the XLR input than on the mini plug input of the same machine!
This time around, there’s apparently a polarity issue. Marantz has marked the XLR mike input on the PMD-680 as Pin 2 hot, in accordance with the current industry standard. But on the supplied review copy of the deck, if I record with a normal mike and cable into that XLR input, the unit inverts polarity from input to output. Meanwhile, the quarter-inch mike input jack passes audio neatly from input to output without inverting polarity, when using a cable that properly ties XLR pin 2 to the tip of the quarter-inch plug.
There’s also a built-in mike in the top deck of the recorder. This sounds a bit hollow when compared to a good handheld broadcast-quality mike, but it’s handy as an emergency backup or for making recordings for transcription.
Since there’s no motor in the PMD-680, it avoids one of the biggest drawbacks of built-in mikes in previous models—audible vibration from motor noise. But some internal components in the machine emit a tiny high-pitched whine that can be picked up during very quiet recordings with the built-in mike. And the recorder’s shell case is very resonant, so any bumping of the recorder or jostling of the shoulder strap connectors makes a VERY loud noise in the built-in mike.
This becomes almost amusing when using the built-in mike along with one of the PMD-680’s better new features, the Prerecord buffer. Prerecord starts filling a memory buffer whenever you have the unit in Record Pause; when you start recording, the two seconds of audio from the buffer is appended at the front end of the file. This feature is great for not missing the tops of recordings…but when you’re using the built-in mike, what the Prerecord saves for posterity is the loud click of you hitting the Record button!
(Two seconds, while better than nothing, seems a little short for such protection; some of the hard disk recorders being marketed by other companies for field recording have as much as ten seconds of prerecord buffer.)
The PMD-680 also has analog line input and output on RCA jacks, and a mono headphone output on a stereo quarter-inch jack, again much more rugged than TRS mini jacks. There’s plenty of gain for the headphones, and for the built-in speaker as well.
A Digital output jack is also provided, in SPDIF format at 48 kHz on a coaxial RCA jack. This does not output audio during recording, only during playback, and only when turned on by a switch near the connector. These restrictions are apparently in place to conserve DSP resources and power. (On the sample machine I reviewed, the SPDIF output was sending out clock information OK but wasn’t able to send out audio.) No SPDIF or other digital input is included.
An analog telephone modular jack allows recording from the telephone line or transmitting playback audio from the PMD-680 to the telephone line. There is no way to use the telephone jack as a modem connection for digital file transfers; the telephone jack is just that, for connecting in parallel with an analog telephone. By setting a software preset, you can also choose “telephone passthrough” mode, which lets you record from a mike or line level signal and simultaneously pass that signal into the telephone line.
A small jack on the side panel allows a handheld or footpedal switch to pause and unpause the unit in record or playback. This small detail could make it much easier to transcribe recordings. Pausing and unpausing playback with a footswitch keeps the hands free to type transcripts and other notes.
Another jack on the side panel is for external power, either from the wallwart power supply or from some other source. This jack uses a non-locking coaxial connector, which could potentially cause problems for secure power connection. On the upside, this connector is compatible with a range of power accessories from third party suppliers. Marantz does not list any particular devices as compatible with their 13 VDC input, but you should be able to find outboard battery packs and car power adapter cords that will work with the PMD-680.
An icon appears on the LCD screen when the battery power is getting low; when you’re just a few minutes away from shutoff that icon starts flashing. There’s also an audible signal in the headphones and (if it’s on) the loudspeaker to warn of low battery strength.
Other displays include record time remaining (calculated at the currently selected quality rate, a nice touch).
When playing back files the display will show the bit rate of the recording, and the date and time it was recorded. (The internal clock, by the way, stays powered even while you change batteries, and doesn’t have to be reset! That satisfies a pet peeve of mine with some consumer-style recorders.)
An option called “Silent Skip” allows you to set the unit to pause recording when it hears silence, and turn back on when audio resumes. With older recorders this usually resulted in upcut or wowed audio every time the recorder turned back on. But in conjunction with the Prerecord buffer, this technique is far more elegant and potentially useful for recording meetings and other occasional-audio situations.
There are many other familiar controls and options held over from older Marantz reporter machines:
All these are welcome and useful options, though they can trap you if the switches get set incorrectly by accident. As always, more capabilities mean more things to check before recording.
Some of the location-marking features of the PMD-680 are quite different from what you may have known with past recorders, even those in the earlier digital formats of CD, DAT and MiniDisc. If you’re just now graduating from the three-digit mechanical tape counter on your PMD-222 cassette recorder, welcome to the brave new world!
In the new file system you’ll find two categories of locators: track numbers, and EDL marks. Tracks in this sense are more like soundfiles on a hard disc; EDL marks are a way to locate the beginning and other important points within a track.
Track numbers are assigned every time you enter recording and then go to Stop mode. If you use the Pause control and then resume recording, you’ll continue to record in the same track. Only when you go to Stop is the card’s table of contents updated with the start point, end point and duration of that track.
Unneeded tracks can be deleted individually, which can free up storage space on an almost-full card. Unlike MiniDisc conventions, when you delete a Track on the PMD-680 the remaining tracks do not automatically renumber themselves to fill in the missing numbers. There is, however, a manual track renumber option.
There can be up to 255 tracks on a memory card. If you make a lot of short recordings on a high capacity card, and go to Stop instead of Pause after each one, you could easily run out of track numbers before you run out of recording time. Once you have recorded 255 tracks, you’ll have to delete one or more tracks and manually renumber the remaining tracks before you can record more audio on the card, even if there’s plenty of blank space available on the card!
When you take the memory card out of the PMD-680 and place it in a computer, the tracks appear within a hard-drive-like icon as numbered soundfiles, each within its own numbered folder. There’s no facility in the recorder to rename tracks, so these numbers will be very important to you as you navigate the soundfiles on the computer.
The counterparts to Track numbers on the PMD-680 are called EDL Marks. During recording, the PMD-680 writes an EDL mark every time you start recording; you can also add marks during recording or playback by pressing the Record button. Whenever you add an EDL mark during playback, all the ones after it are automatically renumbered up one digit.
There can be up to 255 EDL marks per card, similar to but distinct from the 255 Tracks. There’s an EDL mark at the top of each track, but there can be more than one EDL mark within a track. If you reach the 255 limit for EDL marks, you can still record audio, but no further EDL marks will be written unless you erase some of the previously written ones.
What can you do with these EDL marks? You can jump to the next mark while playing back. You can designate two EDL marks as the beginning and end points of a loop for repeated playback. Or you can assemble a shortened playlist, marking some EDLs to be played and others to be skipped. You can’t, however, change the playlist to play segments in a different order, as you can with CD tracks, DAT PNOs and MiniDisc tracks.
The EDL marks are only visible and useful when playing back the card in the PMD-680; when you move that memory card into a computer, the EDL marks are not available for navigating soundfiles with computer software.
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The PMD-680 offers a tantalizing glimpse into the future of recording for radio reporters. Broadcasters are only one of the many intended user groups for this machine; others include transcription of meetings and other general-purpose voice recording needs.
But having embraced the memory cards and other useful components of computers, and integrated them into a familiar recorder package, Marantz needs to embrace some of the newer battery technologies used by laptops and celphones, like lithium ion or NiMH power storage. The current battery options are much more restrictive than Marantz’s own similar recorders in older formats.
(A Marantz spokesman says the company will be adding a rechargeable NiMH battery option, with three-hour run time and outboard charger, in the future. They also recommend investigating third party options for AA size lithium ion batteries with external chargers.)
For users who can depend on wall power or outboard batteries, the PMD-680 is a far more practical machine. If the cost of solid state storage continues its free fall price curve of the last few years, then even uncompressed long-form recordings will become more reasonable on this memory card recorder.
And where compression of original recordings is still necessary for transmission and storage efficiency, this recorder offers an impressive array of choices to help achieve an acceptable tradeoff between file size and sound quality.
Additional Information is available from Marantz-Superscope at http://www.superscope-marantzpro.com/Marantz/PMD680/pmd680overview.html
