A couple of years ago I had to fill in as the head of technology at the place where I worked. At a technical conference, one of the key speakers showed me this little gadget. It is a high quality pre-amp, designed to increase the sound quality on MP3 recorders. As you may have read, I have pussled a lot with the sound quality on my Nokia N82 lately. Today I came to think of this product from Maycom. The TubeMic.
It’s a long time since I saw this product for the first time. I guess the quality is even better now, but I really haven’t tried it myself. I got a quick demonstration at the conference, but our need at that point where aimed towards high-end recorders, so I really didn’t bother thinking about it.
I have tried a couple of solution so far when it comes to external microphones on Nokia N-series, and my conclusion is that you got to boost the signal level high to get good quality when recording with an external microphone. It’s almost like old time MP3 recorders, which really needed gain strengt for line signal, not microphone. With this device it should even be possible to use a dynamic mic, since it has built in battery power. I haven’t tried, but I’m curios if there’s anyone out who has. Drop us a line in the comment field and share your experience.
More info about the Zoom H2 recorder. One thing i didn’t mention is that you can record audio in full quality on your memory card, while recording on your N-series. If you also work for radio or want to make a podcast of it later, you can then produce a story inn superb sound quality. The H2 also works as a USB microphone. You can use it to put voice-over on you laptop when you’re editing .
To connect the recorder to your phone you first have to connect the original Nokia cable to the phone. You then get four choices for connection. Choose ‘headset’. There is a microswitch in the Nokia and this is now opening for incoming sound from the yellow connector on the cable.
To achive good audio quality you also need a 3.5 mm minijack stereo to phone mono adapter. This is a special adapter and you can buy it from RadioShack or Ebay. I got mine one Ebay. The last connector you need is a phone to phone adapter.
The Nokia N82 and N95 requires higher sound level in than you might be used to. You have to experiment with this. On the H2 recorder, you are taking the sound from the headset outlet. In this recording, the sound on headset outlet was set to 60. I had the same level for recording. If you loose your lip sync, set recording format to WAV, 48 khz, 16 bit. The N82 and N95 record audio in this format.