Audio Recorders For Podcasters - Podtrak P4 vs Zoom H6

hello and welcome to this review of the zoom pod track p4 versus the zoom h6 so tl dr if you're a if you're a podcaster and you only do audio go with the pod track before you have more flexibility it comes at a much lower cost or you know roughly 100 bucks cheaper and it does everything you need for an audio based podcast if you're in a sound designer or if you do video as well uh go with the zoom h6 uh you have uh you have more features you have a higher audio quality uh and you know you have these interchangeable mics you basically have more flexibility with this um so that's the tl dr so let's get started with the unboxing of the podrack p4 and just so you guys know right now i'm recording with a tascam um uh i believe it's the tascam 10dl microphone and there is a washing machine in the background so this is the box here's the back in case you guys need to know so the specs on this this is this can only record cd quality audio that's all it can record it can only record 44.1 kilohertz at 16 bits but that is good enough for podcasting so this item was not available at b h um or sweetwater uh for some reason there it's as others have mentioned it's only been available through best buy uh and that's where i got it and it came within two days so here you have your manuals and user guides so here it's a you know this unit costs 199 this is the unit itself we'll go into that in the box all you get is batteries you don't get a usbc cable and i guess that's because of the low price point you don't really get much uh so that's all that's in the box let's move that away so here's the unit itself so let's just begin with the top um you have four xlr inputs uh these are not trs combo jacks uh unlike the zoom h6 i guess i'll bring the h6 to compare them side by side on the h6 you have combo jacks maybe you have if you have an instrument uh on the pod track before you do not uh you do have uh you know four so you have the four xlr and you do have gain control for each one but one thing uh to notice is that these gain knobs are smaller uh than the zoom h6 so the zoom h6 it feels really nice it's you sort of adjust the gain right when you need it i haven't used this the pod track before but these are significantly smaller knobs same thing for the headphones for the headphone volume so right below the gate knobs you have the option switch between adding phantom power and i believe you can only add i believe it's 48 volts of phantom power versus the zoom h6 you can adjust how much phantom power you add to each track i believe you can add 12 24 and 48 volts so you can flip the switch if you have a condenser microphone or something like a zoom like a sure sm7b to turn on phantom power and here on the right two channels you see on the third channel you see a little phone and that's because you can take in callers from a mobile device and on the fourth one you have a usb symbol and that's because you can connect this via usb to take in colors via usb from your computer via usbc from things like skype zoom or any application and so below that we have our mute buttons the zoom h6 does not have new buttons well it kind of does yeah it does have you can just click on the track they're just numbered uh on the plot track before they're just specific zoom buttons and here let me see if i can zoom in so you guys can see this better great so there you can see the knobs much more clearly they are smaller versus the zoom h6 there they are side by side and then below the mute buttons you have four sound pads you can pre-load some sounds this is your level or gain for the sound pad and then here you have your screen it's you know a bit small um and here you have your menu control buttons for the screen and your record button and below that you have your headphone volume control and the outputs are a 3.5 millimeter or 1 8 1 8 i did think they were quarter inch but they're not but that's fine because most headphones are 3.5 millimeter so uh comparing that to the h6 and the h6 you only have one headphone out and you have your volume right there to control your headphone out so moving off to the side so on the side of the unit you can see that there is two holes here and this is the power button so one of the holes is the 3.5 millimeter input for the trrs cable that you connect to your phone to take in a collar the other hole is for zooms proprietary add-on device that you can purchase for fifty dollars which basically you can connect this to these two holes and it'll make that trrs connection a bluetooth connection so you can take in a caller via bluetooth from your mobile device so in the back we have our battery tray for double a batteries let me just go ahead and put those in right now there is no string the the zoom h6 does have a string uh like if i compare the zoom h6 here's the battery compartment and there's a little string that makes it easier to pull out the batteries and there's also on the zoom h6 you have a 1 4 thread if you thread this onto a tripod or anything on the uh track before there is there's no thread so you can't mount this on anything uh so going on to the other side we have our sd card tray something i hate about uh these zoom products with sd card tray is that it's kind of difficult to to open the tray you you really need like a nail to have a nail or have something you know thin to open that as you can see with my h6 it's all scratched up there so moving aside from the sd card tray you have two usbc uh connections so i don't yet understand why they couldn't have done this with one usbc connection because i assumed that with the i'm pretty sure with the uh usb connection to your computer i'm pretty sure you can use bus power the unit uh just like the zoom h6 uh so one of it is to use one of the usbc connections is to connect it to your computer the second usb connection is to connect this to a power bank or a dc outlet and that's pretty much the unit by itself let me go ahead and zoom out now and side by side by the zoom h6 so uh things to note um the podrack p4 you can only record 44 uh 44.1 kilohertz at 16 bits the zoom h6 you have much more flexibility you can record up to 96 kilohertz at 24 bits um in the zoom h6 it's currently three hundred dollars at b h uh in the zoom the the zoom pod track p4 is two hundred dollars uh at anywhere you buy it so with the zoom h6 you do have these interchangeable modules and with the paw truck before you do not so if you do need sort of a run and gun solution where you can quickly pop on a module and turn on the unit and you know click record and start recording go with the zoom h6 that's why it's called a handy recorder another thing is the display let me turn on the zoom p4 so it says no card but there you can see the display um it's it's much easier to see the display on the zoom h6 it can be a little difficult to see the display on the zoom on the zoom p4 especially since it's not colored like the h6 like right now you can see it's clipping and that color coding really does help so when you turn on the buttons they do light up bright red and when talking about things to note let's talk about gain on the zoom h6 you have up to 55 decibels of gain on the xlr channels and it has been uh pretty good for even managing things like a um a sure sm7b which i have here with me today um and the zoom p4 actually provides more gain it provides 70 decibels of gain another thing to note is that the potrack p4 this can be used as an audio interface and a podcast recorder and audio recorder at the same time the zoom h6 you can't do that you can only use it as a audio recorder or audio interface so that would be another reason to go with the doom p4 and it does you can turn on the setting to do mix minus and it'll do that you know automatically you just have to turn it on through usb with the zoom h6 you do have mixed minus capabilities but you'll have to do that manually it's not automatic all right so this pretty much sums up the review of the pawtrak p4 versus the zoom h6 let me know which one you guys have or you guys are planning to get down in the comments below and i'll see you guys next time [Music] you

Channel: MOTA

Views: 6,395

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Id: 5w7pcJxgMwc

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020