REVIEW: M-Audio Microtrack 24/96

Posted by Top Jimmy (P) on February 27, 2007 at 10:40:42

This thing has got to be the biggest piece of crap that I've attempted to use in a long time. I returned the first one thinking it might be defective, but found that the second one is exactly the same.

First and most critical, this thing has a severe high noise floor problem. I bought one of these to replace a compact DAT recorder that finally gave up the ghost. The DAT recorder noise floor was right down there near the LSB. Not the Microtrack! Depending on the analog input selected and the level settings, the noise floor peaked somewhere between -50dBfs and -60dBfs on both analog inputs! I made a voice recording at 24-bit of a speaker on a mic who is very dynamic. The recording peaked at about -2dBfs. Once I added some comp/limiting before burning to CD, I could easily hear the noise floor under his voice.

Cobble this together with the cheap build quality, failure to provide unity settings for the digital level adjustments, failure to provide for input padding at the standard +4/-10 input levels, failure to establish an input level standard (i.e. 0=+4dBu=-15dBfs), failure to idiot-proof the design (phantom power on a TRS plug), and the fact the none of my digital cables will fit on the S/PDIF plug because the housing shrouds it too closely makes this recorder a downright loser!

Other than that, I do like the concept of being able to pull the files off the flash media via USB. It's too bad that the realization of this design is so below my expectations. If there had been no noise issue, I think I would have been able to overlook its short-comings, especially for the price. But in no way is this thing "professional", and M-Audio should be ashamed to market it.

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Topic - REVIEW: M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 - Top Jimmy 10:40:42 02/27/07 (1)

Re: REVIEW: M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 - Marantzguy 13:52:57 03/01/07 (0)

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