As I mentioned here, I ordered an audio recorder last week. I decided on the cheapest good quality machine: the Zoom H2 for only $188. With it, I ordered a 4 gig SD card (about $25). Both came in today.

First impression: I am impressed.

I haven’t done much recording but so far, the sound is fabulous (on the low or mid mic gain settings) and certainly more than adequate for my needs (good, but not necessarily professional quality audio for videos, podcasts and other odd web-based projects)

With the above MP3, I think you can hear the clock ticking in the background a little. The shuffling noise at the end is my handling it.

An unexpected thrill was discovering it has a guitar tuner built-in. It not only has normal guitar tuning, but also tuning for bass and five other common modes. Funny thing was, I was considering buying a tuner. (Incidentally, this site has an excellent online guitar tuner)

Plug the H2 into the computer to easily access the SD card (move files to and from). Additionally, it can act as a computer microphone for on-the-fly computer recording. If all you have is a cheapo computer mic, this certainly will make you sound -if not look- better.

It’s made for musicians, but undoubtedly it will be great for most computer audio needs. I will write more on it after actually using it, but I feel like I got a real bargain.