If mic self-noise is truly a concern for you, then look beyond Zoom. This page provides a good comparison:
I have the Sony PCM-M10 and a Tascam DR-680 for different purposes, and both are solid units for there price. Keep in mind that most portable recorders will not give pleasing results for "far away sources" unless you mean general ambient recording. For distant sources you would need a specialized microphone. For most versatility, I personally would recommend choosing a recorder with XLR inputs such that you can buy additional mics in the future. The Olympus LS-100 seems to be a favorite among recordists on a budget for this reason.
If you want the advice of people far more experienced with these recorders and techniques than myself, I'd also suggest signing up the for the nature recordists mailing list. It's a very useful resource in general.
On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 10:26 PM, Philipp Überbacher <hollunder@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi there,
I finally want to buy a small field recording device, a zoom H* or
similar, and I hope that some of you have experience with some of those
devices and can give me some advice.
I want to use this device to record interesting sounds wherever I am,
so it should be relatively small and and fast to start recording. I
also intend to record lots of quiet or relatively far away sources, I
want to record bird songs rather than guitars. As far as I've seen
those devices use SSDs or similar storage media, so I assume they don't
make any noise on their own, right? I guess the microphone should also
have a low self-noise.
Any recommendations?
Regards,
Philipp
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