It does have ext mic facilities, but not XLR. Very expensive.

Is it me or does this thing look like Robbie the Robot ???

Cool looking and WAY overpriced... Sony and Apple are good at that.

Try this for an alternative, my audio guru / film composer buddy has one and just loves it....
http://www.zzounds.com/item--MDOMICRO

...you'll note the price. No superconductive-titanium-fiber-kryptonite-enhanced housing on it though.

Now, that looks pretty cool.

If you doubt that there's a difference in quality between audio devices etc consider this. In double blind tests mixes from Protools outrank the same mix from Vegas. I think we're talking the difference between 24bit and floating point calcs and better interpolation. Of course the fact that Vegas came in second, is vastly cheaper and much faster means it's nothing to be ashamed of, it does beat other higher priced systems by quite a margin.
None of this is to say that you can't get an excellent result with reasonably priced gear but just because it sounds good doesn't mean it couldn't sound better. What it does mean is that without direct A/B comparisons using the same material it's hard to evaluate.

/edit/
Then again looking at the gizmo in question it's a joke right?
They're using an X-Y stero mic and the one thing that's crucial with those is placement, which means you could end up with the whole unit 20 feet in the air, might make it kind of hard to use the controls. And they're electret condensors, the same things they put in the cheapest audio gear.
Bob.

I kinda like the price and specs on this one, the PMD660

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=362023&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

I went through just about every one of these kinds of devices, one you couldn't turn the limiters off on, one didn't do phantom power etc, etc. The M-Audio one should have been the answer but it was delayed and delayed and the money was burning a hole in my pocket and it was an extremely good price on the last day of NAB, so I bought the Edirol R-4.
And now the M-Audio is still not right it seems and I'm still very happy with the R-4 although now 4 tracks isn't enough but if I bought a Soundfield mic I'd be right, of course if I bought that mic i wouldn't be going to NAB this year.
If you're interested in any of this sort of gear checkout the Tapers fora run by Doug Oade, I think there's a certain sprinkling of BS there but also some good guts on what's good and what's a dog.
If you want the best gear Sound Devices are the people to look into, very expensive and very good. They don't build mic pres that sound 'warm' or 'natural', they just sound like they're not there.
Bob.

As the saying goes, there are electret condensers and there are electret condensers. True, there are some very bad cheap varieties. There are also some extremely good ones too. They've come a very long way in the last 10 or 15 years. Most reasonably priced condenser mics these days are electrets.

Doing some tests in the audio lab at work we compared a $1.59 electret module from Radio Shack to a $100 Shure SM-58 (yes, i know that's dynamic, but it's what we had lying there handy). The electret module had a wider frequency response, less noise, and less distortion. The high end response was surprisingly flat all the way past 18KHz. It didn't handle as high an SPL as the SM-58, but it still handled over 95dB at 1 metre. And, while the low end charted as well as the SM-58, we did agree we liked the sound of the low end from the SM-58 better. For general music recording the electret seemed crisper and clearer on everything except close-mic'd vocals ... which makes sense since that's that the SM-58 is designed for.

Back in my early theatre days i built a couple of omni mics from those $1.59 electrets and short lengths of 3/4" conduit and a 9v battery for the power supply (obviously budget was a HUGE concern). I fed those into a good 3-head cassette deck and recorded the rehearsal for the orchestra's review. The director decided it was a much better sounding recording than the one from the pro they hired. Dunno, maybe i got lucky with mic placement, but the mics themselves performed incredibly well.

I wouldn't blame the electret condensers for the low quality of cheap audio gear. It's probably the cheapness of the rest of the gear that has the more detrimental effect.

Thanks for that, you've got me inspired to try them as there's some info on how to built some interesting phased array mics using a number of them. Strictly tin cans and fencing wire stuff but a coat of mat black paint and they all look the same :)

Bob.

For a while I read the review of the M-Audio portable recorder with great excitement, then came to the part where they talk about the built-in rechargeable battery. Dumb!

So, for the moment I guess I'll continue to stand by my ol' reliable dinosaur Sharp MD-MT15 MiniDisc units. Adjustable while recording, easy to see the meter, metal case, excellent audio quality, runs on 2 AA cells, $60 on eBay,...

> I kinda like the price and specs on this one, the PMD660

I have the PMD660 and I’m very happy with it although it’s not without it’s flaws. The pad on the mic pre is extremely noisy to the point of being unusable. It works great with my AT897 shotgun which is why I bought it. That allows the boom operator complete independence from the camera (i.e., no tether) Just sling the PMD660 over the shoulder and the boom can go anywhere.

I bought the ENG kit for $100 more. It includes a nylon case, XLR cable, and a remote which can clip onto the boom pole (or your wrist, etc.) to turn the unit on and off without having to look down and fumble for the buttons on the actual unit. It even has a led to let you know you’re recording. For the price, I think it was the best thing.

~jr

In double blind tests mixes from Protools outrank the same mix from Vegas. I think we're talking the difference between 24bit and floating point calcs and better interpolation. Of course the fact that Vegas came in second, is vastly cheaper...

Umm, more likely that the plug-ins that come with Protools are better-sounding than the ones that come with Vegas.

If you spend a fraction of the price difference on getting good quality plugs for Vegas, I bet you'd get mixes that couldn't be told apart quality-wise.

Also, mixing is an art, not a science, so I hope whoever did the blind tests you're referring to used equally proficient mixer jockeys on both.

Still, there is no question that the more expensive plugs in the higher end versions of Protools are better than what comes in the box with Vegas, and rightfully so.