Full review
The world is full of portable audio recorders for capturing lectures, recording your garage band or helping you produce a podcast, but few products are flexible enough to do it all. The Zoom H4n is a welcome exception to the rule: a mobile recording jack-of-all-trades that includes built-in stereo microphones, professional XLR and 1/4-inch microphone jacks, a multitude of recording formats and a design that's intuitive and tough. Best of all, at around £330, the H4n doesn't have to break the bank.
Design
If you're familiar with previous Zoom handheld recorders, the H2 and H4, you probably know that the company's excellent track record with creating value often comes at a price -- cheap-feeling design. For instance, its £150 H2 recorder includes useful features you won't find on high-priced competitors like the £260 Edirol R-09HR, but the H2's cheap, plastic body feels like it dropped out of a cereal box. Fortunately, the H4n looks and feels remarkably solid. Side by side with the £440 Sony PCM-D50, you'd never guess the H4n is the most affordable.
Measuring 70 by 165 by 38mm, the H4n isn't the most pocket-friendly recorder we've tested, but it's the smallest design we've seen that includes two full-sized XLR/instrument combination jacks. In fact, no feature is spared on the H4n. From the built-in multi-pattern stereo microphones on the top, down to the phantom-powered mic inputs on the bottom, the H4n packs in every conceivable option you'd want in a portable audio recorder. There are even extras such as a foam windscreen, mic stand mount, 1GB SD card, Cubase recording software and a power adaptor.
Design features such as microphones encased in solid aluminium and a spacious 51mm (2-inch) screen may be the first details to catch your eye, but its the small things that really make us love the H4n. Little details such as an offset record button that's easy to feel in the dark, or the built-in speaker on the back that lets you listen back to recordings without having to plug in a pair of headphones, demonstrate that the designers really did their homework with the H4n.
Our favourite unsung design feature is the H4n's menu-navigation system. Using a simple menu button and a scroll wheel off to the right side of the recorder -- where your thumb naturally falls -- the H4n offers the easiest menu navigation we've ever used on a portable recorder. Granted, the menus themselves offer a dizzying amount of options and features, but the ergonomics of jumping in and out of menus to manipulate those features are as smooth as can be.
Of course, not everything is perfect. For one, it seems odd that the mini-jack microphone input is on the back of the H4n, instead of on the side, as is the case with rivals. Placing the input on the back makes it impossible to lay the H4n on a table while recording with an external mini-jack microphone, unless you stand the recorder on its end. We also would like to have seen a dedicated track-divide button on the H4n, similar to the one found on the PCM-D50.
Features
If you value simplicity over flexibility, you may find the hundreds of settings and configurations offered by the H4n overwhelming. For us, the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach feels refreshingly generous, offering more features than recorders that cost twice as much. The H4n comes with a 150-page printed manual that clearly explains each and every aspect of operation.
The H4n can be set in three main recording modes: stereo, four-channel and multitrack recording. Dedicated LED indicators for each of the recording modes are found just above the H4n's screen, making it easy to determine which mode you're using. By default, the recorder is set to stereo recording mode, letting users capture stereo-audio recordings from the H4n's built-in mics, or external microphone inputs.
Recording resolution ranges from a maximum of 24-bit/96kHz to as low as 48Kbps MP3, with selections for just about everything in between (such as 320Kbps MP3, or a Pro Tools-friendly 24-bit/48kHz). Microphone gain adjustments are made using a clearly labelled rocker switch on the right side of the recorder, and features such as auto-level adjustment, multiple compressor, and limiter settings help to prevent recording levels from overloading.
While most people will only use the H4n's stereo mode, the recorder's four-channel mode distinguishes it from the competition. With four-channel recording, the H4n lets you record from the built-in microphones and external microphone inputs simultaneously as two separate stereo files.
In the real world, this means you can record the stereo sound of a music performance and the direct sound of an instrument (say, a closely-mic'd acoustic guitar, or the line output of a keyboard) all at the same time. The result is a more professional-sounding recording that leaves some creative wiggle room when the files are mixed together later on. To hear a comparison between two-channel (stereo) and four-channel recording, take a listen to the sample recordings in the performance section of this review.
The third recording mode of the H4n is multitrack recording. This mode is similar to four-channel recording, but treats each channel as a distinct track, with individual settings for panning, volume and effects. In essence, multitrack mode lets musicians layer compositions in multiple passes (first drums, then guitar and so on). Some users will find value in the H4n's ambitious multitrack mode but, from a general usability perspective, we feel that the mixing board-style interface of this mode is awkward to operate using the included controls.
Other useful features of the H4n are an SDHC-compatible memory-card slot, support for phantom-powered microphones, and a low-cut filter with several frequency selections (from 80Hz up to 237Hz). To see the full list of features, pay a visit to the Zoom H4n product page.
Performance
During testing, we found the H4n's controls just as responsive and easy to operate as those of any competitors. Information is crisply presented and easy to read on the recorder's bright screen, and quick adjustments to recording and headphone levels are a cinch.
Rumbling noises caused by handling the recorder are minimal, and disappear almost entirely if you attach the included mic mount and use it like a pistol grip. Note that this also makes you look awesome. Soft rubber pads on the back of the H4n help to isolate the recorder from noise when placed on a table.
The H4n runs on two AA batteries, and includes internal settings to maximise performance from either alkaline or rechargeable batteries. At its default setting, you can expect around 6 hours of continuous WAV recording. For longer recording times, you can switch the H4n into a stamina mode that offers up to 11 hours of WAV recording. No matter how you cut it, though, you're still not getting the 12 hours of recording promised by the PCM-D50.
We could spend paragraphs trying to describe the sound quality of the H4n and the benefits of its four-channel recording feature, but, instead, we'll let the audio do the talking. Agents Del Futuro let us sit in on a rehearsal session, where we captured sounds ranging from acoustic guitar to African thumb piano. We recorded these audio snippets using the H4n's four-channel mode, set at the default 16-bit/44kHz resolution. Both two-track and four-track versions of the recordings are included, to give you a sense of the sonic advantages of four-channel recording.
Several of these recordings also take advantage of the H4n's internal compression and limiter settings. Aside from volume adjustments and fades, no post-production processing has been applied to the recordings, except to convert them into constant-bit-rate 256Kbps MP3 files using LAME encoder version 3.97. The samples are short, but hopefully convey our satisfaction with the H4n's recording quality and capabilities. If these players don't work for you, there's an alternative version here.
Acoustic guitar
(stereo mics with limiter)
Listen now:
Acoustic guitar
(stereo mics with limiter, direct piezo mic with compression, 3-channels)
Listen now:
Thumb piano
(stereo mics only with no compression, 90° mic pattern)
Listen now:
Click through to the next page for more recording samples.
Thumb piano
(stereo mics with no compression, 90° mic pattern, stereo piezo mics with compression, 4-channels)
Listen now:
Drums
(stereo mics with limiter)
Listen now:
Drums
(stereo mics with limiter, overhead snare mic and kick drum mic with compression, 4-channels)
Listen now:
Acoustic guitar and vibraphone
(stereo mics with limiter)
Listen now:
Acoustic guitar and vibraphone
(stereo mics with limiter, plus ribbon mic on vibes and piezo mic on guitar, both with compression, 4-channels)
Listen now:
Drums and lap steel guitar
(stereo mics with limiter)
Listen now:
Drums and lap steel guitar
(stereo mics with limiter, and overhead snare mic and kick drum mic with compression, 4-channels)
Listen now:
Rainy boulevard
(stereo mics with compression, windscreen)
Listen now:
Conclusion
With a solid, intuitive design, excellent performance and great recording quality, the feature-packed Zoom H4n outperforms more expensive rivals. It's a great device.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet