« These are great units for live recording  »

These units are great for live recording. They have a good solid sound. I like the clarity of this unit for live band recording. They have a really clean sound and they can take a great deal of input volume. We just used some recording a live band www.chrislieckstudios.com. I like the sound for the money. I like the layout. I don't like the small middle knob. Some of the design layouts are a bit weird. The output usb has to have the right operating system to use it on and so that is annoying as is the output headphone jack. I think that they should consider more options for a hand held recorder but as far as sound it is solid. I would rather this be a metal casing than plastic that feels like metal at least that what I call it. I think an that if your using it for live recordings then you want to have a great deal of flexibility when recording for a band or if you use if for video more options as well. Some external recorders for field recording have multiple inputs and allow 4 inputs for lavalier mics and additional mics. I also want easier exportation of audio files. My real problem with these small compact recording devices is the screen size is horrible. You need bifocals to read the screen on most of the Zooms. It becomes annoying when moving from one recording to another and especially if you have several tracks of recorded. But back to the sound, it is good and sounds solid overall. I used it three times and aside from the screen and other issues I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the sound of the unit. It is a great sounding piece for the money. I don't like that it does work importing from what I find on 10.4.1 on Mac and if you have an older computer you may have to update your operating system so that is an issue if you want to do a direct transfer but you have an older operating system you have to go through hoops to make it happen. I would rather that by a plug and play on any operating system or just a basic output feature to send the .wav file to your desktop.