The new Zoom H2 looks very promising…small/compact…records to removable media…and able to record up to 96kHz/24 bit. They have just arrived at many dealers as of Aug 22…
You might try this VST effect (free!) from Voxengo…from their website: “This plug-in can be used to add stereo width to audio tracks. This plug-in is most effective on mono pad sounds and alike. This effect works with mono stream generating stereo stream. It also works with stereo streams, however both channels get processed independently of each other like they are mono streams and then two resulting stereo streams get mixed together to produce one stereo stream”