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After pondering four fewer tracks but more prestige of the (more costly) Sound Devices 744T, I went with the Tascam. I am not disappointed. Full-time pros may need to own a Sound Devices or Zaxcom field recorder to impress the producers, but as a sound mixer/recordist for small time indie productions, I find the HS-P82 is not only more cost-effective, but holds its own performance-wise against the more prestigious competition. Yes it is bigger and heavier, but that's the price you pay for such a powerful user interface. Big easy-to-hit buttons, and the fold-out touchscreen make interacting with the Tascam a breeze compared to the Sound Devices interface - (which I do use when a production company provides the audio gear for me to use). As a bag mixer it is a little more of a workout to carry over your shoulder while also hefting a boom pole. It is definitely a tradeoff for having a powerful and easy to operate user interface. But on a cart, this is one sweet machine. The pre-amps are always the first thing people ask about. They are generally what accounts for at least half of the cost of a mixer/recorder. After progressing from a Tascam HD-P2 (two-track) with decent pre's, to a Roland R4Pro (with not so decent pre's) to the HS-P82, I can definitely tell that these pre's are clean and quiet. I am of course wowed by the Sound Device's pre's, but IMO the Tascam's are more than serviceable for all but the most demanding Hollywood sound guy's needs. And the 25-pin AES I/O port allows you to input eight digital audio signals if you prefer. Metadata can be easily entered and edited using a QWERTY keyboard with a PS2 plug (or adapter). I have added the optional RC-F82 unit, so I have a complete location mixing/recording desk. I can talk to my boom operator via the TB-out to the boom operator using the TB mic on the unit, combined with the mix, and he can talk to me using his headset mic coming in through the RC-F82's return in. I found a guy here on eBay who is custom-making 3-channel boom operator snakes for a fraction of what audio gear resellers are charging. Plug the recorder into your laptop with a USB cable and you can instantly upload or download projects. Quite a number of options for timecode are included. A built-in slate mic and tone generator let you create log entries for the editor's use. The built-in eight-channel mixer can not only record each input channel to it's own isolation (iso) track, but also can record an instant mix to two additional tracks as well as send the mix out through a pair of XLR's. This makes the unit not only useful for film sound production mixing, but also perhaps for a small band to use to control, monitor and record their house mix. I hope Tascam comes out with a firmware revision eventually that will allow overtracking (monitoring previously-recorded tracks while laying down new ones). This would make this a killer remote music production recorder. They also should allow re-assigning the front-panel knobs when using the RC-F82 remote. All in all, I am very satisfied with the features, performance and value of this unit. And for what I saved over getting an eight-channel Sound Devices or Zaxcom recorder, I plan to upgrade my wireless lavs to digital (to prepare for the impending UHF spectrum squeeze) and add a Sennheiser MKH-8070 long shotgun to my mic collection. In short, If you are more concerned about your budget than your image, go with the TascamRead full review
Kind of a beast but it sounds great and has a lot of features.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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