I'm a bit nervous of joining in this thread, but I do have some experience of using the Roland Edirol R09, so here goes. What I don't have is enough experience and techy gear to be able to thoroughly test it out, so any comments are going to be quite subjective. Firstly, Roland do publish a frequency response graph at http://www.edirol.net/products/en/R-09/images/info_03R_L.jpg. OK, it's the manufacturer's own, but I haven't found an independent analysis. Response does rise below 40Hz, but there is a low cut filter available which I find useful for my voice (deep male). Again, there is a peak between 8000-15000Hz, I haven't heard any significant effect of this, but maybe the old ears are letting me down here. As for noise, again I can only judge from my audio editing software (Audacity) and by listening, but it seems to be low. It cannot be used (to my knowledge) as a USB microphone plugged straight into the computer, an area which seems to whack up the noise in the H4. I only use it with the manual volume control and there are 30 levels of such control. In addition there is a high/low gain switch which apparently adds about 24dB of gain. The input meters seem fairly accurate and I try to keep the level below 3dB peak, never letting the 'Peak' LED flash on. Using 24bit WAV recording I feel that I have a bit of headroom to avoid 'blowing the highlights'. Using it for 'ambient' recording is a delight, easy to carry, unobtrusive and quick to operate. The serious problem is its sensitivity to wind noise and I need a windshield or 'dead cat' to help with that. For narration I set it up about 30cm from my mouth, off axis, in a fairly dull acoustic environment and get, to my ears, acceptable results. For me 'acceptable' is fine. As a device it will always be the compact camera equivalent of sound recorders and knowing that, I try to use it within it's limitations. I'm happy with the results at the moment and having got a FIAP ribbon at a recent AV International using it, it can't be too bad. Hope that helps, Howard
