Solid state recorders

Yes, flash memory storage is being used more and more widely and has big advantages over hard drives. It's silent, uses much less power and is less prone to mechanical failure. For now, though, it's a lot more expensive per megabyte and uncompressed music takes up a lot of space.

In the iPod line, all the units up to 64 Gb have flash memory but the biggest one, the 120 Gb Classic, still uses a hard drive.

I spoke with Marantz and they now have an R-C 600 remote control for their PMD560/570/580. Also you can put in track markers and be able to skip from track to track.
They rate their 2 gig flash (not SD) at 3 hours for standard 16 bit CD quality.
Wonder when the audiophile industry will take hold of this. Sounds like the way of the future IMHO.

Marantz's top of the line, $1,500 PMD 580 has pretty poor signal / noise ratio and dynamic range. Much worse than an average CDP.

# Recording MP3 Bit-rate (Selectable)
# Mono: 160, 128, 96, 64, 32 kbps
# Stereo: 320, 256, 192, 128, 64 kbps
# Sampling Frequency: 44.1/48 kHz
# Number of Channels: 2 (Stereo), 1 (Mono)
# Audio Frequency Response: 10 to 20,000 Hz ñ 1.0 dB
# Signal-to-noise Ratio, IEC-A Weighted: 91 dB
# Total Harmonic Distortion at 0 VU: 0.01%
# Dynamic Range; 94 dB

PMD 580

Yes, that's pretty poor especially considering that it is intended to record with up to 24 bit resolution. The portable Sound Devices 702 that I mentioned, costing just a few hundred dollars more, has WAY better signal-to-noise and other numbers, and can also do 24/192 as opposed to just 24/48.

Regards,
-- Al

There are several choices now using several different types of solid state storage. Look at the Tascams too. The Marantz is aimed more at broadcast/news markets. The use for home audio is to have a convenient and high quality recorder sitting in your main system, then bring the cards over to your computer for editing and/or saving copies on a HD and CD/DVD media. Reuse the cards except for really important/irreplaceable stuff.