Marantz PMD650

Hugh Robjohns investigates a rugged new Minidisc recorder with a host of facilities for professional location recording.

Minidisc may not be the greatest audio recording format ever invented, but it is an extremely convenient and cost‑effective one, particularly as the latest generation of ATRAC data‑reduction is virtually undetectable. As a medium for capturing interesting noises for sampling or for recording audio interviews for broadcast or archive purposes, Minidisc is hard to beat and has been widely adopted.

This new machine from Marantz bears a striking resemblance to the various Marantz Superscope professional location cassette recorders — a mainstay of local radio stations throughout the country 10 years ago! The chunky, rugged recorder features a number of facilities which are completely absent from most consumer portable Minidisc recorders, but which are essential for fast, efficient and reliable recording on location. For example, the balanced XLR inputs can cope with both mic‑ and line‑level analogue signals, and are complete with phantom power, attenuators and LF filtering. An S/PDIF digital input, with in‑built sample‑rate converter, and an AES‑EBU digital output are also provided. Recording levels may be set manually, employing an internal peak limiter if required, or with a fully automatic level control. A full 20 seconds of shockproof buffer memory protects both record and playback operations.

The machine supports both standard and long‑play recording modes, the latter offering 148 minutes of mono recording on a 74‑minute disc. There is also a handy dual‑mono mode where the right‑hand channel is recorded 15dB lower than the left to offer a useful degree of protection against overloads. Both an internal electret microphone and a miniature monitoring loudspeaker are built in to the unit. The PMD650 can be powered from eight AA cells, an optional nickel/cadmium (NiCd) battery pack or an external mains power unit — the PSU also doubles as a charger for the NiCds and can recharge them from flat in three hours. A well‑thought‑out weather‑resistant shoulderbag (manufactured for Marantz by CP Cases), complete with accessory pockets, is a worthwhile optional extra.

Joining The Tour

Configuration options for the PMD650 are accessible from the top panel, along with transport controls and editing facilities.

The layout of the machine is very clear and intuitive: the left and right side panels carry most of the connectors, with only the essential transport and display controls on the front surface, while all other controls are laid out sensibly across the top along with the speaker, microphone and Minidisc tray. The right‑hand side panel carries a pair of XLR sockets with a slide switch to enable the 48V phantom power, which can provide 5mA of current — enough for a wide range of high‑quality mics, although battery life is curtailed quite noticeably when it is switched in. The NiCd battery pack is claimed to provide around two and a half hours of recording time with dynamic or self‑powered mics, but this falls to well under two hours with a pair of thirsty capacitor mics. It would be essential to have several fully charged battery packs (or a small fortune invested in Duracells) secreted in a pocket of the carrying bag for serious recording sessions of any length! Completing the facilities on this panel are two phono sockets, which provide an S/PDIF digital input and a socket for a wired RC5 remote control unit (not supplied). The digital input is routed through to the digital output, optionally through the internal sample‑rate converter.

The left‑hand panel carries a co‑axial power‑input socket (13V DC) with an associated LED to show the charging status of the NiCd. A pair of phono sockets provide line‑level analogue outputs and an XLR with associated on‑off switch puts out an AES‑EBU‑compatible digital signal. The switch not only helps to save on power consumption, but also stops the unterminated XLR socket from emitting electromagnetic radiation in contravention of CE standards.

The front panel is simple and uncluttered with a ganged record‑level control, the master record slide switch (which also writes track IDs), the record‑pause button and a key‑lock switch to prevent accidental operation of any of the machine's functions. There is also a backlight button for the LCD screen with another button to select what is shown on the display. The backlight switch provides a three‑second burst of light if pressed and released; if it is held for a second, the screen remains illuminated until the button is pressed again. To the right of the large LCD is a proper quarter‑inch headphone socket with a volume control that also sets the level for the internal speaker. There is a slight problem with the LCD which, although readable if the machine is placed on a table top and the user is looking from above, becomes very difficult to discern when the machine is in its carry‑bag and slung over the shoulder — unfortunately there is no provision for adjusting the display contrast or viewing angle. This is a problem I have encountered on many location recording machines: even the otherwise excellent HHB Portadat suffers from it!

The Minidisc loading drawer dominates the left‑hand side panel. Across the front, a stiff red slide switch toggles power on and off and a similar black switch ejects the disc. The machine has sophisticated power management and if unused for five minutes it will shut itself down after emitting a series of beeps from the speaker (this signalling can be deactivated if not required via a software menu). The right‑hand side of the top panel carries a mass of switches and transport buttons: Stop, Play/Pause, Wind and Rewind are joined by a Backspace button — in Play mode this causes the machine to replay the previous five seconds of the track again, but in Record mode it stops recording and erases the current track, re‑entering record‑pause at the same point in the program as the previous aborted take. Another useful transport function is that, by pressing the wind and Play buttons together, you can introduce a 'Quick Playback' mode which operates at roughly double speed.

The remaining buttons provide the various editing functions associated with Minidisc including track combining, dividing, erasing and moving, and titling of tracks and discs. There is also a pair of buttons which enable repeat play of a selected track or the entire disc, as well as identifying a section within a track for repeat play (A‑B).

A grid of 12 slide switches occupy a large proportion of the right‑hand side of the top panel and determine the input signal selection and its associated processing. There are switches here for selecting standard or long play (mono only) mode; dual‑mono or stereo recording; internal or external mic, line or digital inputs; mic attenuation (0, ‑15 or ‑30dB) and band‑pass (125Hz‑3kHz) or high‑pass filtering (125Hz). There are also switches to monitor left, right, or stereo on the headphones and internal speaker; to set manual, manual with limiter, or automatic level control; and to switch the LSR ('Level Sync Record') mode on so that the machine automatically enters record when the input signal exceeds a predetermined threshold.

There are no operational menus to worry about at all, although some very useful aspects of the machine can be customised via a simple menu system on the LCD. The battery warning beeper can be disabled, for example, and the threshold for the LSR can be selected from ‑10, ‑20, ‑40, or ‑60dBFS. There are also facilities to set up an automatic track incrementing system, to determine the input record buffer time, to bypass the sample‑rate converter and to disable SCMS flags. Another nice touch is the ability to indicate the kind of battery being used (alkaline or NiCd) so that the 'battery time remaining' indications are as accurate as possible. The final options are to customise the date and time formats.

In Use

Both analogue and digital I/O are accessible from the side panels of the PMD650, along with sockets for the power supply and a remote control.

I found the PMD650 very pleasant to work with and I would imagine it would tolerate a reasonable degree of heavy‑duty use without problems. The main operational controls all fall to hand nicely and operating the machine is pretty foolproof. Once the input selection and conditioning switches are set up properly, most operation is centred around the transport keys.

The mic amps are sufficiently quiet and have enough gain for most applications, and the provision of phantom power allows a wide range of decent microphones to be used. Having said that, it should be remembered that this machine was primarily designed for radio reporting applications which typically use a handheld close mic, so don't expect state‑of‑the‑art recordings of quiet acoustic instruments with distant mics, because the signal‑to‑noise ratio is specified as only 85dB (A‑weighted).

The shockproof buffer seemed to work very well — occasional (deliberate) knocks and bumps that might have been expected to cause problems never did. The inclusion of the buffer in the record mode also means that, provided the system has been enabled by entering record‑pause, up to two seconds of audio before releasing the record button are also recorded. You need never miss the start of that perfect sound‑bite again!

The editing functions all worked well enough too, although I find the restriction ATRAC imposes on editing accuracy (6mS increments) makes fine music editing difficult. It is, however, perfectly adequate for topping and tailing a recording and for most internal edits in speech. Labelling tracks was pretty tedious, as characters are selected by scrolling through a large alphanumeric list with the wind and rewind keys, and I would be surprised if many users will have the patience for it — I certainly didn't!

All in all, however, this is a fine machine for anyone wanting a purpose‑designed solution for recording to Minidisc on location, and it is far better than trying to cobble a system together with a cheap domestic portable Minidisc, a battery phantom power‑supply box and all the other bits and pieces that would be needed. Even the carrying case is nicely put together with extended sleeves on each side to provide weatherproofing for the cables and connectors, a dedicated battery pocket and a full‑length zipped compartment for storing the mic and other extras.

I have to say, though, that I have some serious reservations about using any data‑reduced recording format for audio origination. The latest MD machines sound very good, but they are still not as good as uncompressed recording — even clunky old CD‑quality — and the quality of concatenated MD recordings falls apart very quickly indeed. There are also some very similarly specified portable DAT recorders (such as the Tascam DAP1) which allow true 16‑bit uncompressed recording, with all the professional features such as phantom power, at a slightly lower price than that of this Marantz machine. DAT may not be as fashionable as MD at the moment, but it is far from being a dead format!

That said, my only specific complaints with PMD650 are that longer battery life would have been an advantage (especially as eight Duracells bite the dust at a time) and a contrast control on the LCD would have been very helpful, but these are minor niggles on an otherwise impressive machine. Okay, so it's not cheap (not even close!), but it is very easy to use, does exactly what you want it to do without having to think about it too hard and, more importantly, does it all reliably and professionally.