Freesound Forums

Hi all,

I got the opportunity to compare the Fostex FR2 with the LE version.. The results are on:

http://www.erdie.de

There is some explanation necessary. At first tried to calibrate the gain level on both devices as good as possible. We used a mixer from the kitchen for this. Then we applied one Schoeps CMC64Ug to each of the devices and put the mics to the same distance of the mixer. With the gain level meter we adjusted to gain until it looks identical (-6dB). The first graph shows the sprectrum of the mixer. The FR2 seems to be about 2 dB higher as the FR2LE so we have to calculate this difference into the other noise measurements.

The gain was about 35 dB (there is no way to say this exactly)

The second graph shows the comparison of the noise floor with 200 Ohms at the Mic input of both devices without phantom power. After calculating the difference of the gain level it seems to be that the noisefloor is 1 dB lower on the FR2LE but thsi can be ignored. For me it look very similar. Anyway there are some spikes with do not appear at the FR2. In the area of -90 dB this does not hurt so much but the interpretation of the overall noise level will become slidly worst because of this.

The spikes fo the LE are increasing in the 3rd graph when phantom power is applied. I assume this has something to do with the optimised (decreased) power consumption of the FR2LE. They will likely come form the power supply of the LE. The LE work with less voltage compared to the FR2.

The overall picture looks good for the LE concerning the price is just half of the FR2.

-Erdie

P.S. I am sorry, the text is in german, i posted it in a german forum. You can click on the pics and the FR2 is red, the FR2LE is black

Thanks for this Erdie.

Always nice to see gear tested. Would be good if the LE had a 160 GB HDD

http://www.fostex.com/images/products/pfr/fr2le_slant.jpg

digifish

damn you erdie,

you've given me gearlust

The m-audio microtrac is SO BUGGY you wouldn't believe and this looks like a wicked replacement!
Then again, it's more than double the price of the microtrac!!

- bram

by the way, a quick question: how much is battery life WITH phantom power? Because that seems to be an important fact they forget!

- bram

Bram
by the way, a quick question: how much is battery life WITH phantom power? Because that seems to be an important fact they forget!

- bram

There's a huge thread over at Tapers Section....

http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,62698.0.html

Manual -

http://www.fostex.com/support/pdf/fostex/fr2le/fr2le_owners_manual.pdf

digifish

@Bram:
I never leeched the batterie completly but I can say:

There a 3 possiblitys:
1) 4 Alkali cells
2) 4 NIMH cells
3) A tamiya racing car batterie pack

The vendor says 1) and 2) approx 4 hours and for 3) about 8 hours. My estimation is about 2-3 hours with NIMH AA cells WITH phantom power.

Since I have a tamiya batterie pack (not the original, a clone which has slidely less capacity) I am using the Fostex since 10 days and the batterie will not become empty so I am sure that it will reach at least 6 hours with phantom power or more. I think, this is sufficient

On the other side I think these spikes in the sprectrum graph are the result of the power optimized preamp design due to the FR2 model does not have these flaw. Independet of this the overall quality is similar to the FR2 and who cares about a spike at about -90dB ?

-Erdie

Erdie
My estimation is about 2-3 hours with NIMH AA cells WITH phantom power.

-Erdie

Yep, three hours on four NiMH (2500 mA) AA, phantom power on, backlight off. I guess a bit longer if the recorder is operated intermitently.

Saludos