Recording Equipment - Recorders

Cassette Recorders

Analogue recordings are often made using cassette recorders, which use 1/8 inch tape running at 1.875 inches per second. They typically have a poor signal-to-noise ratio, but are generally acceptable as voice recorders for dictation and personal notes. Quiet recordings are very noisy, and there can be significant harmonic distortion, loss of quality over time and media damage. The cassette recorders are being phased out, replaced with minidisk recorders and are now hard to find.

Minidisk Recorders

These tech wonders make digital recordings that are compressed and stored on 2.5 inch magneto-optical disks, which are protected in a cartridge. Using the ATRAC compression system developed by Sony, minidisk recorders are extremely light and very small, allowing the user to take a powerful recorder with him wherever he goes.

Digital Recorders

Quickly becoming the common use favorite, digital voice recorders provide a quick and easy way to make notes and record meetings on everything from cell phones to dedicated devices. Storage is through internal memory and either expanded with additional memory cards, or emptied via downloading the data to a personal computer. Digital recorders can also be software operated from a personal computer to record music directly from USB or Firewire inputs or music created digitally on the computer through other software.

Recording equipment continues to improve and miniaturize, as well as become more and more available to the common consumer. With a base in technology it is certain that as time passes, more and more sophisticated forms of recording equipment will result.

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