Audio Gear Review:

Marantz PMD660 Review

(Click for Instructional Video Below)

(4 out of 5 stars)

 We've used our Marantz PMD 660 going on three years now.

Gotta admit, we love it, although it has a couple of shortcomings, which we'll get to in a moment.

First, let's look at the cool stuff this portable flash recorder has at its disposal.

The Marantz PMD660 is small - about 4" x 7" x 1.5" or so - and slips into a backpack easy enough. The built-in microphones are very sensitive. We've had great success recording everything from birds chirping and animal sounds in an old-growth forest, to violent rainstorms while standing in the garage.

It's gotten great mileage as a podcast recording unit - by plugging in a couple of XLR microphones (the PMD660 offers phantom power for condenser mics) and talking away.

To transfer the audio files into the PC, just slip the compact flash disc out and plug it into a card reader. Or use the accompanying cord to plug it into a USB port. Either way, the files show up as MP3 files (or .wav files if you so designate) and just drag and drop into your file manager. Then drag them into Adobe Audition or any other audio editing software for easy manipulation.

For voice recording, the built-in mics - as we said - have great sensitivity. Depending on your location, they may be too sensitive, pulling in ambient background sounds. But overall, the sound quality from the unit's built-in microphones is crisp and high quality.

Lots of options for recording on the PMD660. For instance, if you want to set the recorder to capture the previous two seconds BEFORE you hit the record button, you can. This just means the unit it always keeping two seconds in reserve.

Want to record a long session, such as an hour or two hour lecture, but don't want to wade through the long MP3 to find a specific topic? Easy enough. Just set the unit to start a new track on a pre-set, such as every 5, 10, 15 minutes, etc.

You'll also find a variety of options for sample rate, recording source (internal or external), level control, silent skipping, stereo or mono, and more.

This is a handy unit that stores a lot of audio information. For instance, I have a 512 MB flash card (yeah kind of small in this day and age), but in stereo format (MP3 at 44.1 khz) it stores over 8 hours of audio. If I switch to mono that space doubles.

Where the PMD660 falls short, for one, is the microphones over-sensibility. For instance, if you try to record loud sounds (train going by, live music), you'd better experiment with the internal settings - the automatic level control won't give you enough leeway. If you have a pair of nice headphones, such as Sony Digital phones with padded ears, you can check the sound while it's coming in. I've done a number of live concerts where the sound was overmodulated because I didn't check the input. Other times the live recordings have been fine - as long as the internal settings (manual control) were followed.

Also, don't expect the onboard speaker to give you any real representation of how your recording sounds. The speaker is not of sufficiently high quality to offer that. You'll have to play back your recording through your PC or another set of speakers - or a set of nice headphones - to really know what you've got. However, the controls are easy to work, once you learn them, which means you can bounce from track to track in an instant.

The final item that I would consider a shortcoming is that the battery power (4 AA's) isn't sufficient to give a decent volume when using the phantom power and condenser microphones. The AC adapter (which comes as an accessory) does the trick, though. I've had good luck recording on-site podcast interviews by plugging in headphones and condenser microphones - and the AC Adapter.

All in all - I give it 4 out of 5 stars; a very nice unit, very much worth the nearly $500 because of its versatility, portability and professional quality.

-- Tim Gordon

Learn more about the Marantz Digital Audio PMD660 with this demo video: