Zoom H8

I bought this only with having in mind to buy the EXH-8 Expander Capsule for the +4 more inputs. ... And Zoom never released that. It almost passed 2 years, and they didn't release it. They are selling this as a 12 track audio recorder. Not 6. Which is kinda misleading.
2 tracks is for the mix down. Other 6 are independent. Making it a total of 8. And the rest are missing because they did not released EXH-8.

So... ZOOM Corp. ... When are you going to release the expander? When I can buy that, I will change my review.

I've only had this for a couple of weeks so cant testify for its durability but so far, I couldnt be happier with this unit. It does everything I want accept have a DSLR camera option (which would have been nice). So far havent noticed any loss in the all-round abilities of the recorder, tried it with both Field recordings and with music and its done the job very well, though it also depends on the mics one uses too. I love the multitrack feature. Navigation is pretty straight forward too, which is a big plus for instruction-phobes like me.

Coming back to this after some more usage, the only issue I've struck with the unit is the touch screen control. Its small and sometimes takes a few attempts before it picks up the touch of my fingers. Maybe that's the fault of the hard worn calluses on the ends of my fingers after years of playing guitars but it can be annoying when you just want to set things up and get to work!

Now several months in after first buying this unit and still very happy with it, in general. However, the touchscreen is a real pain to make fine adjustments to volume, etc. So dont expect to do much on that. Also, strange thing seems to happen when I have it plugged in via usb to the mains supply and I connect a phantom large diaphram mic as well as any other phantom 48v mic - seems that the large diaphram drains a little too much power sometimes and the H8 just shuts down unexpectedly. Lost some work that way.

Another con is the USB power connection. Like all these damned usb connections, the one on the H8 is quite easy to damage. Fortunately, I can still power it and connect it to my computer but I do have to angle the cable now as the connection has been worn through usage over the months since I got this unit. While I am still discovering just what the H8 can do, it is disappointing that the people who design these things insist on putting stupid ports that are susceptible to breakage or wear.

I am using it for recording training videos and will be using it for field recording videos with various audio sources. Excellent that
Pros: Ease of use, superb audio quality with minimum noise, many source inputs, excellent tutorial videos.
Cons: not aware of any yet.
I bought a Comica audio mixer for about 150 € 1 month before I bought this one. I was pretty disappointed by Comica so i decided to go for the guaranteed quality.