Best Audio Recorders

For my first audio recorder review here at BestAudioRecorders.com, I have chosen the Edirol R-09.  I have used this recorder extensively over the last year in many Live Audio recording scenarios, and overall I have been very happy with it.

The Edirol R-09's list price in the US is $399, but at the time of writing, its street price is around $329.  The Edirol R-09 was first released in 2006 by Edirol, a division of Roland, in effort to build upon the purported successes of its R-1 model.  (Why they skipped from model number 1 to number 9, I have no idea....)  The R-09 can record at a maximum of 48 kHz sampling rate, in up to 320 kbps stereo MP3 or 24-bit stereo WAV format.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.  With its pocket-sized form factor and its reduced price over the R-1, how does the R-09 measure up?

Contents

• Summary of Features
• What's in the Box
• Review of Features
  • Physical Features and Handling
  • Display and Menu System
  • Power
  • Recording
  • Sound Quality
  • Playback
  • Recording Management
  • Computer Connectivity
• Comparisons
• Conclusion

Summary of Features

Largely quoting from the manufacturer's website, the R-09 features:

• 24-bit/48kHz (or 44.1kHz) linear PCM recording
• Pocket-sized form factor
• Up to 320 kbps MP3 recording
• Records to SD/SDHC card
• Isolated Adaptive Recording Circuit (I.A.R.C.)
• High-grade stereo condenser microphone built in
• Mic and Line audio inputs
• High speed file transfer via USB 2.0 connection to computer
• Easy operation, user-friendly graphic display
• Time & date stamp
• 4 hour battery life (recording) using 2 x AA alkaline batteries

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What's In the Box

The unit I am reviewing was purchased in December 2008.  It came with Firmware version 1.30.  The Edirol R-09 was originally available only in Black, but in 2007 the company came out with Red and White options.  All colors are sold for the same price. The box contains:

• Edirol R-09 audio recorder unit
• USB cable
• 64 MB SD memory card
• AC power adapter and cord
• Documentation:
  • Owner's Manual
  • "Practical Guide to the Edirol R-09"
  • Note for disposal in EU countries
  • "Notification -- Added Functions for the R-09 (Ver. 1.30)"
  • Support and Warranty card
  • Battery Handling notice
  • Card listing how to insert batteries, which memory cards can be used with the R-09, and the fact that demo songs are on the included SD memory card

The included SD memory card is, as stated, only 64 MB in capacity.  This is very small!!!  It's more like a placeholder.  You will most likely want to buy a larger card along with this recorder.

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Review of Features

Physical Features and Handling

The Edirol R-09 fits easily in the hand and has a durable feel.  It is pocket-sized, yes, but I'd say this is more for a suit-coat pocket or a dress-pants pocket.  It doesn't work so well in the pocket of tighter-fitting jeans.  And it'd be a little heavy in the front pocket of a dress shirt.

The front of the unit has the LCD screen, a Peak indicator light, a row of three multi-purpose round buttons, and a large rocker switch for navigating through the menus and for control of playback and recording.  The Record button is in the center of this.

The back of the Edirol R-09 is mostly empty, but with four slide-switches at the top.  They are:

• AGC (Automatic Gain Control, on/off)
• Ext Mic Type (External mic type, Mono/Stereo)
• Low Cut (on/off)
• Mic Gain (Low/High)

The right side of the R-09 contains a Hold switch, buttons for playback volume, and a combined 3.5mm jack which supports analog headphones or digital optical output.

The left side of the R-09 contains a DC power jack (underneath its rubber dust cover), Input Level controls, and a power switch.

The top of the R-09 has jacks for Mic and Line inputs, both 3.5mm.  Also, the top corners of this model contain the Left and Right built-in microphones.  The Line-in jack is wonderful, as many audio recorders do not have this feature.  It greatly increases the variety of audio inputs that the R-09 can accept.  This feature is virtually essential for digitizing analog audio sources from devices like cassette tape and vinyl record players, and equally so for Live Audio situations and really any situation that necessitates connecting the R-09 to an audio mixer board (such as interview-style Podcasting.)

The various buttons and switches on the Edirol R-09 feel sturdy and are easy enough to press, although many of them require a more deliberate pressing with the edge of my fingernail or the tip of my finger.  This can also be a good thing, though!  It requires extra work, it also minimizes accidental button-presses which can mess up playback or recording.

The bottom of the Edirol R-09 has a sliding cover with a little slide-switch in its center.  Underneath this  cover are a SD/SDHC memory card slot, a mini-USB port, and a battery compartment.  The sliding cover is noteworthy because it opens in stages.  Sliding it toward the back of the unit by two "clicks" exposes the SD/SDHC memory card slot and the mini-USB port only.

To expose the battery compartment, one must perform an awkward two-handed maneuver.  It is necessary to hold the little switch in the center of the cover toward the left while pulling the cover out by one more "click".  When this is accomplished, the sliding cover -- rails and all -- hinges upward to expose the battery compartment.

Don't get me wrong.  I love the Edirol R-09!  My organization owns 18 or 20 of them.  But if I had to point out a design flaw, this would certainly be it.  Accessing the card slot or the USB port is no problem, but accessing the batteries is difficult due to that third-click, slide-switch-activated sliding cover.  Also, I always worry whether I am going to damage the rails or break off the cover entirely while changing the batteries.  The cover is required in order to make a complete circuit with the batteries.  This means if it gets broken off or damaged too much, the unit could not be powered by batteries any longer, and I'd have to rely on the AC Adapter exclusively for powering the unit.  This, in turn, would mean I could no longer use it in field recording situations where using an external power supply is impossible.  Please, Edirol, do something about this on future versions of the R-09!!!

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Display and Menu System

Measuring just 26x14 mm, the LCD display on the Edirol R-09 is quite small.  Nevertheless, Edirol has packed a lot of information into this small space.  For example, the Playback screen contains the filename, file duration, progress bar, time remaining, Left and Right channel level meters with numeric dB increments, Reverb status, activity status, time of day, and battery life!

Packing so much information into a small LCD like that is a two-edged sword.  It keeps costs low (LCD's are expensive components!) but it can lead to a cluttered, confusing display.  However, the R-09 is marketed toward cost-conscious audio professionals, so I'd say Edirol found a good balance in this tradeoff.

Navigation through the menus is pretty simple.  Pressing the left of the three round multi-function buttons reveals the "Finder", which is a list of the files and folders stored on the unit's memory card.  Pressing this button again returns you to the Playback screen.  From the Playback screen, holding down the Finder button for a half-second or so brings up the Menu with all of the unit's configuration options.  Configuring the unit is a matter of using the rocker switch to locate the option you want, and scrolling through the available values.

Note that there is no menu option to view the version of Firmware, a.k.a. System Program Version, that's installed.  It is visible for 1-2 seconds during boot-up, however.  Another place this is revealed is when attempting a firmware upgrade.

Some other quick points to note.  The R-09 needs to be told what type of battery (Alkaline or NiMH) that you are using via the menu system.  Also, if you are using an external microphone, you'll need to set the Plug-in Power option appropriately.  This is analagous to Phantom Power on professional microphones and audio mixer boards.  Only, Plug-in Power needs to be turned on for mics that don't have their own power source.  (Maybe this is no surprise to you, but it was for me.  Previous recorders I've used didn't need such an option to be set.)

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Power

The Edirol R-09 is powered by 2 x AA batteries and can use either Alkaline or NiMH.  This is AWESOME because it means I can change out batteries in a hurry if I need to, and I can obtain them from just about anywhere.  It also comes with an AC power adapter.  Edirol's statement on the battery life is accurate; it lasts up to 4 hours in Record mode if using Alkaline batteries.

To turn the unit on, the Power button on its left side must be held down for about 1 second.  The bootup process is pretty quick, clocking in at about 3 seconds.  This is MUCH better than other recorders I've used, which can take up to 30 seconds.  To power it off, the unit must first be taken out of Record mode (an excellent safety feature, which works even when the Hold switch isn't activated.)  Then, the power button must be held down for about 1 second.  The shutdown process is even quicker than bootup, clocking in at less than 1 second.  (It took quite a few attempts to get a picture of the shutdown screen shown here!  My camera wouldn't take the picture quick enough.)

When in Playback or Record mode, there is a battery indicator in the lower right corner of the screen.  It functions the same way as battery indicators do on most portable electronic devices: the icon is completely filled in when the battery is full, and a stripe of the opposite color consumes more and more of the icon as the battery gets emptier.  But with the R-09, the colors used in the indicator are opposite of what you might think: the icon is filled with white when the battery is full, and black when empty.  This isn't really a problem, but I thought I'd mention it.  It's more of a nit-picky thing.

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Recording

There are two places to look on the Edirol R-09 in order to configure it for recording: the Menu, and the four switches on the backside of the unit. 

Important places in the Menu are the Recorder Setup and the Input Setup submenus.  The R-09 has two sampling rates, 44.1 kHz and 48.0 kHz.  It can record in MP3 format at one of 7 preset bitrates spanning from 64 kbps up through 320 kbps.  Or, it can record in uncompressed WAV format at either 16-bit or 24-bit.  I find the two options in the Input Setup menu to be a little confusing.  "Rec Monitor Sw" configures whether to play out through the headphone/optical jack while recording.  "Plug-in Power", as mentioned earlier in this review, configures whether to supply power to the Microphone jack.

The switches on the back of the R-09 can make a huge difference in the type, level, and quality of audio that this device records.  You'll have to experiment with them to figure out which combination works best for your purposes.  AGC (Automatic Gain Control) is wonderful because it keeps me from having to constantly adjust the input levels during a recording.  I usually leave Mic Gain on High.  Low Cut can keep low-pitched rumbling out of your recording, although sometimes it's better to apply filters in the editing process rather than during the recording.

"Ext Mic Type" determines how many channels the R-09 will record on.  Note, I did not say that this determines how many tracks will be in the recordings that come off of this unit!  The Mono setting results in a two-channel Stereo recording but with one channel silenced.  This is a disappointment.  It does absolutely nothing to save on file size or file transfer rates, which is much of the reason I use Mono in the first place.  (When recording the spoken voice, Mono sounds 98% as good as Stereo, but with 50% savings in file size.  It's great!)  Perhaps in a future firmware upgrade, Mono will really mean Mono.

When the REC button is pressed, the unit goes into Standby mode and the area around this button flashes red.  In amateur and consumer-level recording situations, a Standby mode may seem unusual.  But in Pro Audio settings, it's typical.  On the R-09, Standby allows you to check how much recording time is remaining and whether the audio input levels are appropriate.  Press REC a second time, so the blinking red becomes solid red, to put the unit into the real Record mode.  (If you're not used to having a Standy mode, do remember that you have to press REC twice to go into Record mode!  Otherwise, you'll be in for a disappointment.)

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Sound Quality

Using an external mic or plugged-in audio source, the sound quality from the Edirol R-09 is superb.  One organization I volunteer for has used R-09's to record literally hundreds of Live Sound presentations over the last year, as well as some music from a keyboard, and we have not had any quality issues coming from the recorder.  We've even used the R-09 in video filming sessions as a backup audio capture device, and we've had zero issues with synchronization or frame dropping.

The R-09's built-in mics are good as far as built-in mics go, but such mics are never as good as using external mics.  The R-09's built-in mics could be used for nature or outdoor city scenes, or really any situation where omnidirectional recording is desired and the environment has a notable noise floor.  But for anything where a truly quiet background is desired, find and use a good external mic.

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Playback

The Edirol R-09 is made for professional recording situations which are followed by an editing session on a computer.  Therefore, I believe, its designers did not feel it was necessary to include a built-in speaker.  There is a headphone jack, however.

That said, the R-09 does have enough features to double as a portable MP3/WAV player.  For example, it can be configured to play all of the recordings in a folder back-to-back, in Continuous mode or even in Shuffle mode.  Honestly, I'm perplexed why Edirol included such features.  I have trouble imagining anybody who would use the R-09 in this way.

Playback works simply enough using the rocker switch.  The R-09 features Play, Stop, Pause, and scanning forward and backward through a recording.  As mentioned above, it can play a set of recordings back-to-back.  Reverb can also be toggled through a few different modes.  This feature is really convenient because it has its own button right above the rocker switch.  Another handy playback feature is the Repeat button.  Pressing it once will cause the recording to loop indefinitely between the point in the recording where Repeat was pressed, and the end of the track.  Pressing Repeat a second time, however, will cause the recording to loop between the two places in the recording where that button was pressed.  Pressing Repeat a third time will turn off Repeat all together.

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Recording Management

Managing recordings on the Edirol R-09 is fairly simple.  Pressing the Finder button from the main Playback screen reveals a listing of all files and folders on the device.  In this mode, pressing REC on a file or a folder will give several options, including Rename and Delete.  New folders can be created, and files can be moved or copied as well.

The R-09 neither reads nor writes embedded ID3 tags, so the only metadata that can be derived from these files is the recording date and bitstream info (e.g. number of channels, sample rate, duration, etc.)

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Computer Connectivity

It is extremely easy to transfer recordings from the Edirol R-09 to a computer.  There is no proprietary software or weird file format to mess with.  When plugged into the computer via USB, the R-09 appears like a standard USB Mass Storage device, which means that whether you use Windows, Mac, or Linux, you can copy and move files like any other USB thumb drive or external hard drive.

The R-09 detects when it is plugged into a computer and automatically puts itself into USB Storage mode.  And when unplugged, it automatically returns to its regular mode.  This is very nice.  Other recorders I've used have required going into a special menu setting in order to transfer via USB. Note that it is not possible to record or play files on the R-09 when it is in USB Storage mode.

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Comparisons

The Edirol R-09 is in the same class of pro audio recorders as the Microtrack 24/96 and the Olympus LS-10.  I haven't had a chance to evaluate the LS-10 yet, nor the Microtrack II or the or R-09HR, but I can say that with the exception of two areas (described below), the original R-09 stands head and shoulders above the original Microtrack 24/96.

Why?  The Microtrack's battery situation is a true pity for any extended recording durations that are away from an electrical plug.  But the R-09's use of standard-size, replaceable batteries makes it a breath of fresh air in comparison.  And the R-09's use of SD/SDHC is a better choice than the CompactFlash used by the Microtrack, because SD cards are so much smaller, cheaper, and prevalent among other portable electronic devices.  Also, the R-09's button placement is logical, and its designers clearly paid more attention to safety than those who designed the Microtrack.  Whereas the Microtrack has a Delete button on the front of the unit which can be inadvertently held down, resulting in inadvertently deleted recordings (it's happened to me!), the R-09 requires going through several menu button presses to delete anything.  The R-09's Standby mode is also nice.

Granted, the Microtrack has a greater variety of input and output jacks, and its maximum sampling rate is twice that of the R-09.

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Conclusion

Edirol R-09 is an excellent recorder for any situation that needs quality audio, large recording capacity, good computer connectivity, and varied audio inputs.  It is not without some quirks, though.  However, its relatively high price tag makes it overkill for less-demanding recording environments.  Here are my final ratings for this recorder for several common purposes.

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