Having owned the Sony D100 portable recorder as seen in the photo for several years now, I thought I would make a few observations as to how the unit performs.

Originally I owned a Zoom recorder that disappointed me in regards to the noisy preamps. Having heard good things about the D100, I decided to acquire one because of the reported quality of the preamps for recording quiet sounds and the general recording quality.

Although there are less portable recorders that will deliver the performance I was looking for in a recorder, it was important that I have a recorder that was very portable as the D100 is.

Some of the features that I am enjoying for such a portable unit begin with the construction, form factor, and build of the unit.
The most important feature is the preamp intrusion being quite low, at least below levels of 5 anyway.

Operating the unit has proven to be very easy with the large screen and the button layout.
I'm also finding the 32 GB onboard memory provides a good amount of recording time.
Also the ability to record at separate levels, a gnarly recording wheel, and back-lit recording level numbers is very nice.
I do find the onboard speakers on the quiet side, however they will do in an emergency if for some reason my headphones are not available.

I do wish the handling noise was better when using the built in mics, as the mics pick up the slightest handling noise, making it near impossible to handhold the recorder while using the built in mics. The Zoom recorder that I previously owned had a rubberized exterior that kept the handling noise to a minimum. Still, there are work-arounds to minimizing handling noise, and of course external mics as seen in the photo eliminate the problem.

So that is a short summery as what the Sony D100 is all about, and I'll get back to recording sounds such as the passing train in the above photo.
One last thing, I find that the D100 interfaces quite nicely with my DSLR when shooting video, and is a huge improvement over the built in stereo mics of my DSLR.

Expand the photo for a closer look.....

VE6AB Technical