What Iriver t30 v ifp795/895

[saintmoz]

I need an iriver for backup recordings and I have a choice between 2 models. They are the T30 or ifp795 which one would be the best? The iriver will be plug into the mixing board when being used as a backup.

[kickasspodcast]

I think*....


That the t30 requires a powered microphone, and I'm sure that the ifp series doesn't require an external mic to be powered.


I really like my 899.

[saintmoz]

Well if that's the only thing that is different then I think I'll go for the t30. I can get it $40 cheaper than the ifp895(or the795). I alway use phatom power as I have a condenser Mic, so the T30 sounds like the one for me. How many hours of recording do you get out of your 899?

[tsidock]

I need an iriver for backup recordings and I have a choice between 2 models. They are the T30 or ifp795 which one would be the best? The iriver will be plug into the mixing board when being used as a backup.

You would really be better with the 890, you can pick them up on eBay for $40-$60 all day long.

http://cgi.ebay.com/BRAND-NEW-iRiver-iFP-890-Ultra-Portable-256MB_W0QQitemZ5864065207QQcategoryZ114623QQssPage NameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

If you are using a mixer, the power/not powered doesn't matter. These units have been the Holy Grail of podcasters since the beginning.

Chasing phantom power, may not be too useful as it would only supply ~1.5V which is probably fine for electet types, but any serious condenser, would be severely under powered.

I have used the 890 for remotes using decent dynamics, the results were amazing!

Tom

[saintmoz]

Sorry I'm based in Australia, so the prices were in aussie dollars.

As far as the whole phatom power thing goes, well i was just trying to explain why I don't need the iriver to support an external mic. This is because it will be plugged into my mixer which produces the phatom power for my condenser mic. So to clear everything up, I was not after after an iriver with phatom power, just one that would record line in. It seems both models do this in the same way, so I'll go for the cheapest of the two.

[kickasspodcast]

Why use a portable device if your always going to be stationary?

This is somewhat a rhetorical question,

you can get a 20 dollar (US) IFP 180 that holds 128 megs if your worried about price, then just dump everything to your PC when it fills up.

Is there a reason you want a mobil device to plug into a stationary mixer? Are you using a computer at all? If you are, just buy a 40 dollar external sound card and you don't even need that iriver.

Just my advice...

Jack
with the ghetto fab setup below
http://kickasspodcast.com/899setup.jpg

[saintmoz]

Why use a portable device if your always going to be stationary?

This is somewhat a rhetorical question,

Well It will be mainly used as a backup(so a second soudcard doesn't help), I will be using it to record Skype interviews as well. I have a tested way of recording skype using my mixer, but I need a external recorder.

[tsidock]

Why use a portable device if your always going to be stationary?

This is somewhat a rhetorical question,

you can get a 20 dollar (US) IFP 180 that holds 128 megs if your worried about price, then just dump everything to your PC when it fills up.

Is there a reason you want a mobil device to plug into a stationary mixer? Are you using a computer at all? If you are, just buy a 40 dollar external sound card and you don't even need that iriver.

Just my advice...

Jack
with the ghetto fab setup below
http://kickasspodcast.com/899setup.jpg

I used the same setup at the EXPO, The third mike is a nice touch!

--I like to use an Edirol R1 to record off my mixer, I use the PC for sound drops and skype, but it just makes me sweat, when I use it to record. I probably should seek medical help for that but I am in my comfort zone so it is not going to happen soon. :P

[kickasspodcast]

Hmmm......

I understand with the skype thing, at this time, my ifp is possessed, it somehow records line in AND an external mic at the same time even though its set on line in. I can't figure out why, but it means I can just plug an audio out into the ifp and record the whole call (both sides) onto the iriver. You know there are software solutions to recording skype that work great for people, may even be cheaper than the iriver. I just can't see plugging a mixer into an iriver... you want to be able to adjust the levels of your pal and yourself as you record, this is important, though you can control it through his computre and your iriver whilst recording, you may not even need the mixer. If you do end up doing this, either with the T30 or Ifp series, DEFINITELY record at the best possible encoding you can, the only 1 true drawback of the iriver is that you ultimately have to recompress the mp3s you start with. That notion makes me shudder, but in this case, is unavoidable.

I try and make up for this audio sin by only using lossless formats for all my music. I live on FLAC, Shn, and Wav and recompress to 44/192


Good luck-

Jack

[saintmoz]

Thanks Jack, I have tried the software option, I don't like it as much. I use the mixer to pan my voice over to the left channel and the skype call on right side. This is very handy, it gives me the to adjust the level of each channel seperately on the fly, as well as in post production.

[Steve Pinder]

Jack,
I use an iRiver 899 also, but never thought to set it up like that.
Do you get good quality recordings when you set it up that way?


Steve Pinder
www.karatekast.com

[BrianGentry]

To the original question:

The T series has two drawbacks compared to the 7xx and 8xx series:

1. You already know that you can't use an electrolet mic directly plugged in to a T series as you can with a 7xx or 8xx. You don't care about this.
2. The T series does not have an adjustment for the recording quality as a bit rate. It has "low, medium, and high" qualities. I'm not sure what bit rates those correspond to. The 7xx and 8xx series let you select the bit rate as an absolute number, so you can be pretty sure what quality of recording you will get. They go as high as 320 kpps stereo, which sounds very good.

I'm very impressed with the recording quality of the 795 that I've used.

I completely understand why you want to use this with a mixer, both as a backup and as a "portable" (but not mobile) solution. You've also noted something very important: Using the IRiver as an external recording device when doing skype from your computer. This is a necessity when doing a "mix minus".

Brian.

[SFEley]

Hi Jack,

A little off-topic, but I was just taking a closer look at your picture and I'm dying to know... What on earth is that third microphone?

It looks like it could be the Cardboard Tube Samurai's (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/03/03) wakizashi. I've never seen anything quite like it, so I'm hoping you can tell me what model it is. >8->

[saintmoz]

1. You already know that you can't use an electrolet mic directly plugged in to a T series as you can with a 7xx or 8xx. You don't care about this.
2. The T series does not have an adjustment for the recording quality as a bit rate. It has "low, medium, and high" qualities. I'm not sure what bit rates those correspond to. The 7xx and 8xx series let you select the bit rate as an absolute number, so you can be pretty sure what quality of recording you will get. They go as high as 320 kpps stereo, which sounds very good.

Thanks brian,

Looking at the spec sheet for the T30 Direct Encoding Bitrates is up to 320kbps. Even though you can't select the bit rate it looks aas the highest quality setting is the same on both models(am I right?).
http://www.minidisc.com.au/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=32&products_id=692&display=specs

Just I more thing at the higest quality settings how hours of audio recording do yo get from your 795?

[kickasspodcast]

Hi Jack,

A little off-topic, but I was just taking a closer look at your picture and I'm dying to know... What on earth is that third microphone?

It looks like it could be the Cardboard Tube Samurai's wakizashi. I've never seen anything quite like it, so I'm hoping you can tell me what model it is. >8->

A crappy 2 dollar labtec mic: "Labtec Verse 524" (http://froogle.google.com/froogle_cluster?q=labtec+mic&pid=4726337503224444860&oid=6707186335739554148&btnG=Search+Froogle&ei=JWHtQ9mzEriwkwGYmdCaAQ&sig2=pO2Vqg-5fa8Hsv-OIeUk_A&lmode=&addr=&scoring=mrd&hl=en) <shrugs> as I said before, its optional IF you need a 3rd mic to point at the person/source your interviewing. My main mic is that lav mic, I'm savin my pennies for tha Giant Squid, but the lapel mic is fine by me, those headsets sound pretty good(When they decide to work).

2. The T series does not have an adjustment for the recording quality as a bit rate. It has "low, medium, and high" qualities. I'm not sure what bit rates those correspond to. The 7xx and 8xx series let you select the bit rate as an absolute number, so you can be pretty sure what quality of recording you will get. They go as high as 320 kpps stereo, which sounds very good.

HOLY @$^%, I didn't know this part. Why do they always "upgrade" devices by disabling some of their best features. *shrugs*

Knowing this, I'll never buy a T series.

Jack,
I use an iRiver 899 also, but never thought to set it up like that.
Do you get good quality recordings when you set it up that way?

Its supringly noise free consider all the wires, one thing to remember is that the picture there is "optimized" out for 3 people. I rarely if ever have 3 people using the one device. I was always happy with the recording quality using even the radio shack headset, the lav mic works solid also, it doesn't seem to affect the quality when you run more mics into it, the iriver is fine, I guess it just depends on the quality of mic your using.


Good quality? Eh? Being honest, I think its debatable. I haven't had anyone say that the quality was bad however, and I find it to be "about" as good the "average" sound quality of "other podcasts". Hehehe.... vague enuf for ya?

I think its pretty good if you wanna listen to the 1st 2 min of show 49 (http://kickasspodcast.com/kapc49.mp3) then you can see what it sounds like with the lav mic. Almost Every show before show 45 was done with multiple headsets.

FWIW- I took this setup out to the expo, had 3 mics running into it, I met some people (who have a much greater Audio-IQ than I)who tested the recording and were pretty impressed with what it could do, despite the crappy mics.

I record external mics at 44/320 and encode the final mp3 to 44/192. Starting with lossless tunes cuts me some slack right? (I hope)


Jack

[BrianGentry]

Looking at the spec sheet for the T30 Direct Encoding Bitrates is up to 320kbps. Even though you can't select the bit rate it looks aas the highest quality setting is the same on both models(am I right?).
http://www.minidisc.com.au/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=32&products_id=692&display=specs

Just I more thing at the higest quality settings how hours of audio recording do yo get from your 795?

That link *does* seem to indicate a 320 kbps encoding rate. However, I'm suspicious because when I researched this a few months ago, I couldn't find any mention of bit rates in the product literature (on the web site) or in the manual. You'd think that if they published this information at all, it would be in the user's manual right?

I just went through the T30 manual again (http://www.iriveramerica.com/images/pdf/T30_English.pdf) and it definitely does not list a bit rate for any of the settings. The closest it comes is on the specs page (second to last in the PDF), it shows maximum recording times for a few models and specifies that these are at 32 kbps, which is presumably the "low" setting.

As to the maximum recording time of my IRiver: I don't have it in front of me right now, but let's do some back of the napkin math to get us into the ball park. Stereo MP3s @ 128 kpbs average 1 MB per minute. A 320 kpbs encoding is a little under 3 times 128 (3 x 128 = 384), so let's use 3 MB per minute as our spec. My 790 (or is it a 795?) has 256 MB. So, 256 / 3 = 85.33 minutes. That's probably pretty close to what the display of the IRiver indicates. I'll have to check at home and post again.

Brian.

[BrianGentry]

Update on recording time at maximum quality:

First, the unit I'm using is an IFP-790. I can never keep obscure model numbers (at least the ones that don't mean anything) straight. It is indeed the 256 MB model as I reported previously.

With line in (which applies to mic in as well) quality set to 44 kHz, 320 kbps, stereo, my unit just displayed 1:24, one hour and 24 minutes, or 84 minutes of recording time. This is a bit of a coincidence though. I've already recorded probably 5 to 10 minutes of little clips, so the actual recording time is going to be somewhat higher; let's say 90 minutes as a good average, perhaps a bit higher.

If I get around to reinstalling the IRiver manager software and transfer off all of the clips, I can give you a true report then. Otherwise, I'm hoping this is accurate enough for your purposes.

I should note that these times are for a *stereo* recording. If you want, you can set it to mono. The IRiver won't allow you to go above 160 kbps in that case, which makes sense actually. You'll get the same per channel quality as when making a 320 kbps recording, but it'll only be one channel of course. The side effect is that it doubles your recording time; so you'll get right around 180 minutes, or 3 hours of best quality recording on this puny little 256 MB unit.

I will be making the majority of my mobile recordings on this in stereo though, as I have the Giant Squid stereo pair of mics. I want to do stereo primarily for interviews or two host shows. That way I can have one person on the left, and the other on the right, and individually set levels in post. I thought this was a pretty clever technique when I first heard about it here.

Brian.