Zoom F8n

IronFilm

More news: 110% I am going to pre order this

IronFilm

Price Drop: Gotham Sound and Communications, Inc. has stated that the launch price will be US$999! :-o

Info in the comment from Gotham: https://bit.ly/2stJXQ8

IronFilm

No one heard anything from Zoom at Cinegear I assume? Guess they were probably not even there. The final official launch of the F8n is only a handful days/weeks away now!

Vitaliy_Kiselev

Most of the brands now don't make significant noise, and, even if they did, the noise is well below the noise floor of even a recording studio.

One thing to understand that studio noise is mostly not related with things you record, it is outside leaks or such.
With preamps and ADC harmonics are usually always higher than noise.

Yep, parameters can look a little bit overkill, but generally it is just properly made preamps paired with progress in ADCs.

Also next step will be total presence of double-triple ADCs per each channel, as Zaxcom will stop holding progress.

DrDave

Sure, I mean "sounds good to me." But I have seasoned ears.
Beyond that, there is the extreme BS of "quiet" preamps and marketing. Most of the brands now don't make significant noise, and, even if they did, the noise is well below the noise floor of even a recording studio. So now we have to move beyond the "quiet" BS and say, hey, this is not worth mentioning. What is the SQ, like the IQ.

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@DrDave

Now we need to understand "sound good" meaning here :-)

DrDave

There's a lot of hype around these zoom products, and much of that is deserved. They are cheap, well made, well thought out and reasonably durable. I bought the F8. It's got eight channels.
The preamps are quiet, that's for sure. But the preamps on the Tascam sound better. There's no doubt about that. So there's a question here, do you want your music to be "quiet" or to sound good (and still be quiet enough...).

IronFilm

Saw these shared on Facebook from AES Milan 2018:

https://www.facebook.com/IamTheOpposite/videos/pcb.10209898646016779/10209898633776473/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/IamTheOpposite/videos/pcb.10209898646016779/10209898634416489/?type=3&theater

IronFilm

I have written a very detailed (and LONG!) blog post about my thoughts and hopes for the upcoming Zoom F8n:

http://ironfilm.co.nz/what-id-like-to-see-in-the-new-zoom-f8n/

IronFilm

Was nice to see he says it is only a half millisecond delay, so practically speaking nobody will notice it. But will help further improve the existing hybrid limiters by adding another layer of clip protection.

Wonder though if there is a possibility they are considering any more hardware improvements for the F8n other than what they've already decided upon. As the release is still a fair bit away later this year, so I imagine it might not be locked into concrete just yet.