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Swissonic NDR-2 NDR2 Mini Review
There do not seem to be any reviews of this and as it is very cheap (£72 / $112 including postage) I decided to take the plunge and order one……
The Swissonic NDR-2 arrived and I have had a play with it. The internal mics are not much good but the two tie-clip mics are not bad at all, speech is clear and well defined. Recording from phono (line in) is also good. Where it really falls down is when you connect a decent mic to it. I tried both a Sennheiser ME66 and a sennheiser 44P and even with the levels cranked to max it was getting only a fairly low signal and this was when I was talking close to the mic. Also with it up that high background noise was very bad.
So for recording from a mixing deck or used with the lapel mic for radio it works well and is excellent values for money. Just don’t expect to use it with a decent microphone.
So now my search continues for a stereo digital recorder that has a pre-amp good enough to work with decent mics.
Ben
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4 Replies
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Checkout the Zoom and Marantz PMD recorders.
John
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Swissonic appears to be out of business.
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I beleve they have been brought Thonann. Chech out https://www.thomann.de/gb/swissonic_mdr2.htm amd and https://www.thomann.de/gb/swissonic_mdr4.htm (The later is actualy an unbranded PalmTrack.
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Typically when you connect a professional microphone with XLR outputs to a 3.5mm mini-plug input, you’re not going to get very good results. 3-pin XLR’s have a different impedance than mini-plugs. You may get better results with the ME66 if you use an impedance transformer like the Hosa MIT-156:
https://www.hosatech.com/product/0/MIT-156/_/Impedance_Transformer%2C_XLR3F_to_3.5_mm_TRS%2C_18_in
If you go this route, make sure you’re using the ME66 with a battery, and that you plug it into the external mic input, not the line input.
The Sennheiser 44p is a stereo mic with two XLR outputs. You definitely want a recorder with two XLR inputs for that mic. A good choice for a recorder would have been the Zoom H4n. It has 2 XLR inputs.
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