"Great sound recording for the money."

Feature:
No USB cable or software. But it did come with a user manual.

Quality:
I would only give 10 if it came with gold screws.

Value:
You get a good multi track recorder for the money.

Desirability:
It looks good for what it is.Plentey of buttons and lights.

Sound:
CD quality sound....Its good enough for my use.

Ease of Use:
Great sound from this product. I cant find a version of Wave Manager that runs on Windows Vista.

Support:
Never used it.

Overall:
I like the ease of use, the CD quality of the sound. It works great, small and light to transport around, just dont bump it too hard, hard drive in it you know. While it works I wont be looking to upgrade anytime soon, unless I get rich and famous (I dont think so).

"The King of Cheap Recorders"

Feature:
Very few features, but that's what makes it so cheap. I use my computer for most of the editing, but you could get a mixer as well. However, the most important features that make this little machine so great are the four track simultanous recording capability, the simulated amp, and the massive 40GB hard drive. It holds something like 140 hours of music, but you can only save 99 songs, so you'll never run out of space.

Quality:
Everything works fine, I haven't had it for long so I don't know of any potential wear and tear problems. It just has a cheap silvery coating like you would find on other cheap electronics and it'll probably get scratched up really easily. The hard

Value:
This machine is great because it can record 8 tracks (4 simultaneously) for the same price as most 4 track recorders which can only record two tracks simultaneously.

Desirability:
If you want a cheap recorder, this is the king of cheap recorders, as my title implies :)

Sound:
Sounds awesome for the price. The simulated amp is pretty basic but sounds just like a real amp. Very impressed with the sound quality, worth the price.

Ease of Use:
I figured out most of the features in about half an hour or less. Really simple, just read the manual. It even guides you through a practice recording and playback.

Support:
My comments on support are based solely on the manual, which I used once for troubleshooting. It helped me out right away. I've also heard that Fostex has good customer support, though I can't say so firsthand.

Overall:
Great sound. Great value. Great fun. This will tide me over for now until I get myself a 24 track studio.

Sound:
I was very impressed by this product. I use to to work on new material and don't have to worry about losing what I've created. Sound playback is excellent. I use a SM57 for my acoustic guitar and a MXL 990 condensor mic (not great mic, but very decent) for my vocals. Good value for the money.

Ease of Use:
I hate manuals but it's necessary to read this one to really use the machine. It reads easily.

"Update to "harmonic distortion" review"

Sound:
An update to the previous review on harmonic distortion, the high levels only appear on main stereo L/R outs and headphones when the main L/R levels peaks exceed -12 dB, a much lower level than expected (otherwise can be annoying when monitoring a live concert!!!) The measured levels in the recorded wavefiles do meet the 0.06% spec in the O/M (channel level peaks must not exceed -6dB on a channel level meter)

"Beware of harmonic distortion!"

Feature:
The four mic inputs are the reason I bought the unit. The optical output can be used to drive the back unit (so it can record the harmonic distorion as well!)

Quality:
Noisy hard drive Don't drop it!

Value:
"Cheap and cheerful", just don't expect too much.

Desirability:
Working around the unit's limitations makes you think "Ebay this puppy"

Sound:
I was puzzled as to why my recordings made had a "ringing sensation" in the playback. Recording sine wave sweeps at various peak levels showed a surprising level of harmonic distortion at channel input levels above -12dB on the Fostex meters (All channels on my unit have the same problem). A frequency analysis under a sound editor shows the harmonic distortion. The result is that I have to boost my recordings by 12 to 15dB dB in my PC sound editor and the resulting S/N ratio drops to 88dB at best! (i.e fed line levels from an external mixer) Also a recording made of idle channel noise (trim controls set to minimum gain) show spot noise frequencies at 2KHz and 4kHz, the noise floor is about -102dB (but only yields a -88dB S/N ratio because recording peaks must be kept under -12dB)

Support:
I hope not, they now only porvide EMAIL support!

Overall:
I now do not trust Fostex products. I did not expect to have to audio sweep the unit to find harmonic distortion, I have back off -12dB when recording in the field to aviod this unpleasant sound artifact and put the gain back when post processing!