Is the supplied external mic of the H1xx better than the internal?

[Muse]

Today I made several test recordings and the ones I made with the internal microphone are quite a bit better than with the external. I used the iRiver firmware because I have the iRiver manual and I didn't know how to make recordings with the Rockbox firmware.

Does the Rockbox firmware make superior recordings or does it really make no difference?

I used 128 kb bitrate and 44khz sampling rate, and I think these are maximum. I also pushed the volume to the max with the setting at 20. I did this because I'm going to be recording a speaker from a ways away and she's going to be walking throughout a fairly large room occasionally and I won't be able to move the recorder or microphone. Thanks for your comments.

[Llorean]

Rockbox's firmware offers a much wider variety of options in regard to recordings. Please, see the manual, and look in the software itself to see what options you have.

[Muse]

I just went into Rockbox on my H140 and found it easy to configure the recording. I chose MP3, 128 kb, 44.1 khz, Internal Microphone, mono. I then went into the Recording item and a recording began, or so I thought (I saw the thermbar move everytime I said something). Maybe it wasn't actually recording, though, because I don't see any file created! I'm going to look in the manual. If you know the answer, please say, though.

BTW, can someone speak to that question of whether the internal mic is actually better than the external one supplied with the H1xx? Thanks.

Edit: I found out my problem. I hadn't started the recording by pressing the Rec button. Before I went and did that (just did a test 4 min. recording) I went and picked out a default save directory for recordings \RECORD.

Anyway, I'd still like to hear what anyone has to say about the internal vs. external mic.

[AlexP]

If you use a decent external mic (perhaps with an external amp), it will sound *much* better than the internal.  Not only will the quality of the mic be better, but you won't get the sound of the hrd drive spinning on every buffer write.

Edit:  Sorry, I missed the word supplied.  In that case, I don't know I'm afraid, but I wouldn't rate eiter top of the quality stakes

[Febs]

I haven't used the supplied mic in ages, but my recollection is that it is "better" only in that it will pick up less noise from the hard drive.  I wouldn't use either one for anything other than voice recording.  If you plan to record music, invest in a decent stereo mic.

[Muse]

I haven't used the supplied mic in ages, but my recollection is that it is "better" only in that it will pick up less noise from the hard drive.  I wouldn't use either one for anything other than voice recording.  If you plan to record music, invest in a decent stereo mic.

I will be recording voice, but I want it to be as quality a recording as possible. The results I got yesterday using the Internal Microphone were noticeably superior than the ones using the supplied External Microphone, except for the noted HD noice, which happened occasionally. I think I prefer that occasional annoyance to the inferior pickup of the Ext Mic.

I'm actually considering buying an external microphone. Someone in a thread a year or so ago (or maybe older) suggested this ~25 mic from Radio Shack:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?parentPage=search&summary=summary&cp=&productId=2102927&accessories=accessories&rpg=1&kw=lapel+microphone&techSpecs=techSpecs&currentTab=custRatings&custRatings=custRatings&sr=1&features=features&origkw=lapel+microphone&support=support&tab=summary

Anyone know if that's a wise choice?

[petur]

there is a recording thread on misticriver, and you can also go to www.taperssection.com, but the latter only really talks about good mics...

I used to have a skytronic lapel mic (see misticriver) that was quite good and dirt cheap

[Muse]

there is a recording thread on misticriver, and you can also go to www.taperssection.com, but the latter only really talks about good mics...

I used to have a skytronic lapel mic (see misticriver) that was quite good and dirt cheap

Thanks for suggesting taperssection.com and misticriver. I tried both taperssection.com today and misticriver (where I've been registered for more than a year, but haven't visited for months), had nothing but problems.

I am aware of a recording thread at Misticriver, and participated in it some a little over a year ago.

I registered today at taperssection.com and failed to receive the email activation. I went there and asked several more times for another email activation and still have not received it. It's not in my ISP's bulk folder for me, where assumed spam is diverted. Nor is it being filtered or blacklisted in my spam filtering on my local machine. I see nowhere at taperssection where I can ask them what's wrong or even find out what exact email address they have for me.   

www.Misticriver.net has been impossible for me to hit since yesterday and I must have tried 25 times. I get page not found errors in Firefox. Can you hit it? I'm wondering if they died or something.

Edit: I'm told they've been having problems the last day or two and will probably be up and OK soon (this from Anandtech Forums: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=38&threadid=2190798&forumid=1

[Davide-NYC]

I use the internal mic for classes and meetings all the time and it is sufficient. For any sort of high fidelity applications forget it. Do what BigBambi said and invest in external mics and preamps.

When using the internal mic, you can get around the HD spinup noise by replacing your HD with a Compact Flash Card. See http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CFModGuide

[Muse]

I just went out and bought the Radio Shack tie-clip omnidirectional microphone #33-3013, a $25+tax investment. I heard it's very good. Don't know about a preamp for it. It uses a 357 cell, but I think it will maybe work OK with the H1xx with or without the cell. In any case, I already have extra cells.

At least for the time being an omnidirectional microphone is what I want since I'll be recording voice that will emanate from varying locations with respect to the recorder. Eventually I might get a stereo microphone solution, since the H1xx supports that.

Is it possible to use a flash card with an H1xx alternately with a 1.8" HD? I don't know that I'd want to permanently use a card with it because of limited capacity.

Question: What jack would I plug this microphone into?

[petur]

I just went out and bought the Radio Shack tie-clip omnidirectional microphone #33-3013, a $25+tax investment. I heard it's very good. Don't know about a preamp for it. It uses a 357 cell, but I think it will maybe work OK with the H1xx with or without the cell. In any case, I already have extra cells.

H1x0/H3x0 provide power on the plug (3.7V iirc). For voice, this should be enough.

Is it possible to use a flash card with an H1xx alternately with a 1.8" HD? I don't know that I'd want to permanently use a card with it because of limited capacity.

Please read up on this topic in the forum (hardware section) and the wiki (CFMod page)
And I wouldn't consider 32GB to be limited capacity

Question: What jack would I plug this microphone into?

The one marked line-in? Where else...

[Muse]

Yeah, I deduced the jack, but for some reason I started to wonder if more than one would produce results.

Anyway, I've done a battery of tests using both Rockbox and the iRiver firmware and all three microphones:

--> Internal
--> Supplied external microphone (i.e. came with the H140)
--> Radio Shack #33-3013 LR44 powered external microphone (both with battery installed and removed)

My tests confirm that the sound I'm getting recording voice are absolutely superior using the internal microphone! This is with the case removed and I had each microphone pointing approximately 45 degrees from my position about 8 feet from away and I'm talking directly at the microphone.

The Radio Shack mic's performance is marginally superior to that of the supplied external mic, if at all. Maybe I just wasn't talking quite as loud when using the supplied mic.

The internal microphone's recording (all were done using MP3, 128 kbps, 44.1 khz) was louder, sharper, less muffled and had better crisper high range, which counts a lot for me because my hearing is about 50% attenuated from 3500 khz on up. So, I'm going to return the Radio Shack mic today.  In my tests of about 90 seconds I didn't experience any HD spinup/down, but I did yesterday so I know that my 1 hour recordings will have many of them. I guess I'll just live with those. The particular recordings I anticipate making don't have to be perfect, the main thing is that speech is listenable, understandable.

Now, for some reason my tests using Rockbox weren't good. For source, all I saw available using Rockbox were Optical, FM, Internal Microphone and Line In. Obviously, when using the external microphones nothing could possibly work other than Line In. I somehow think this isn't what is supposed to happen. I looked for a setting somewhere that would allow me to choose External Microphone as a source, but failed to find one.

[petur]

The Radio Shack mic's performance is marginally superior to that of the supplied external mic, if at all. Maybe I just wasn't talking quite as loud when using the supplied mic.

well nobody here recommended it to you so I'm not really surprised...
If you manage to get on taperssection (no idea why you can't), have a look at the offerings of Chris Church (or look at his ebay shop CHURCH-AUDIO).

The internal microphone's recording (all were done using MP3, 128 kbps, 44.1 khz) was louder, sharper, less muffled and had better crisper high range, which counts a lot for me because my hearing is about 50% attenuated from 3500 khz on up.

If you're doing tests to comapre quality, always do them in WAV, so you hear what the mic delivers and not the artifacts of our mp3 encoder (there is a better version of it on the way)

Now, for some reason my tests using Rockbox weren't good. For source, all I saw available using Rockbox were Optical, FM, Internal Microphone and Line In. Obviously, when using the external microphones nothing could possibly work other than Line In. I somehow think this isn't what is supposed to happen. I looked for a setting somewhere that would allow me to choose External Microphone as a source, but failed to find one.

Of course you are refering to the original firmware here, which is just giving you the false impression that it is treating your mic differently if you set it to 'external mic'

The only thing the OF changes is the gain range, so if you set it to mic you get a higher gain.

Rockbox gives you the full gain range to use (which is way more than what the iriver firmware gives). Just select line-in and set the gain until the peakmeters show a full signal. If you need more than 20dB gain the expect to have a fair amount of noise. In that case you need a more sensitive mic and/or an external amp

[Muse]

The Radio Shack mic's performance is marginally superior to that of the supplied external mic, if at all. Maybe I just wasn't talking quite as loud when using the supplied mic.

well nobody here recommended it to you so I'm not really surprised...
If you manage to get on taperssection (no idea why you can't), have a look at the offerings of Chris Church (or look at his ebay shop CHURCH-AUDIO).

The internal microphone's recording (all were done using MP3, 128 kbps, 44.1 khz) was louder, sharper, less muffled and had better crisper high range, which counts a lot for me because my hearing is about 50% attenuated from 3500 khz on up.

If you're doing tests to comapre quality, always do them in WAV, so you hear what the mic delivers and not the artifacts of our mp3 encoder (there is a better version of it on the way)

Now, for some reason my tests using Rockbox weren't good. For source, all I saw available using Rockbox were Optical, FM, Internal Microphone and Line In. Obviously, when using the external microphones nothing could possibly work other than Line In. I somehow think this isn't what is supposed to happen. I looked for a setting somewhere that would allow me to choose External Microphone as a source, but failed to find one.

Of course you are refering to the original firmware here, which is just giving you the false impression that it is treating your mic differently if you set it to 'external mic'

The only thing the OF changes is the gain range, so if you set it to mic you get a higher gain.

Rockbox gives you the full gain range to use (which is way more than what the iriver firmware gives). Just select line-in and set the gain until the peakmeters show a full signal. If you need more than 20dB gain the expect to have a fair amount of noise. In that case you need a more sensitive mic and/or an external amp

When I try to login at taperssection it says I need to respond to an activation email. In red it says I can have another such email sent to me. I click that and a message comes up that seems contradictory. Two sentences:

1. An error has occurred!

2. Activation email has been sent.

I get no email. I have no idea what email address it's using for me, although I know which one I thought I entered. As I say, I see no contact method for those folks. If you know how I can contact an administrator or moderator at taperssection, please tell me.

The Radio Shack mic was recommended to me by a poster at Anandtech Forums. It has 16 reviews at Radio Shack's website and from the sounds of them, it's a very good mic and a great price. Anyway, so far I haven't been impressed but I'm completely ready to concede that I may not have used any of the 3 mics correctly. One thing about the Radio Shack mic bothers me. It barely returned any sound at all with the battery removed. With the battery installed, it was OK, a little better than the internal mic. However, the battery is an LR44 button battery, and AFAIK there's no way for the user to know whether that cell is dead or about to die. Thus, it seems to me, the user is apt to suffer bad recordings by virtue of the button cell dieing in the middle of a recording or even at the beginning. I'm almost sure to return it in a couple of days.
- - - -
Thanks. I'll try the mics again with the new information and see how things turn out.

[petur]

When I try to login at taperssection it says I need to respond to an activation email. In red it says I can have another such email sent to me. I click that and a message comes up that seems contradictory. Two sentences:

1. An error has occurred!

2. Activation email has been sent.

I get no email. I have no idea what email address it's using for me, although I know which one I thought I entered. As I say, I see no contact method for those folks. If you know how I can contact an administrator or moderator at taperssection, please tell me.

Send me a PM with the username and email address you used and I'll pass it on to Brian

The Radio Shack mic was recommended to me by a poster at Anandtech Forums. It has 16 reviews at Radio Shack's website and from the sounds of them, it's a very good mic and a great price. Anyway, so far I haven't been impressed but I'm completely ready to concede that I may not have used any of the 3 mics correctly. One thing about the Radio Shack mic bothers me. It barely returned any sound at all with the battery removed. With the battery installed, it was OK, a little better than the internal mic. However, the battery is an LR44 button battery, and AFAIK there's no way for the user to know whether that cell is dead or about to die. Thus, it seems to me, the user is apt to suffer bad recordings by virtue of the button cell dieing in the middle of a recording or even at the beginning. I'm almost sure to return it in a couple of days.
- - - -
Thanks. I'll try the mics again with the new information and see how things turn out.

Ho much did you have to set your gain to?