When I pitted the Zoom h1 against the Tascam DR-05, I had planned to sell one of them off, but as of yet I haven’t taken the time to do it.  Four hand held field recorders are probably two too many. I generally need a very small unit for quick and easy audio work, and a larger unit for Pod casting, voice over work and other random tasks that XLR inputs are better suited to preform.

I Also have a larg (not pictured) laying around for the few times when I’m just in charge of audio, but anymore I find it more convenient to simply clip my zoom h4n to the base of my boom pole and use a hand held remote, that way i’m not stuck carrying around a bag filled with a 4 channel mixer, field recorder, and all of those batteries.

Anyway, before I get to off track, above (from Largest to smallest) is the Tascam DR-40, Zoom h4n, Tascam DR-05, and the Zoom h1. The h1 is still the hands down winner for size and weight, but the Tascam DR-05 has a better build quality then the h1 but doesn’t offer much more in the way of advanced features and it’s size can be a down side for a lot of people.

I had originally considered the Tascam DR-40 to be a competitor to the Zoom h4n, but after messing around with it a little bit this morning, I’m starting to think that it was intended to compete more with something like the Zoom h2n. Although the H2n is missing XLR inputs, it has quit a few more features then the DR-40 and offers up the same usb audio interface available with the Zoom h4n.

I just saw the Zoom h4n used on amazon for $219, at that price it seems like the Tascam DR-40 should be priced somewhere around the $140 mark if Tascam wants to stay competitive.


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