Earth Notes: On the Zoom H1n "Handy" Field Recorder: Review
Updated 2024-05-19.Product: Zoom H1n Handy field recorder
- Brand: Zoom
- Colour: black
- Weight: 60g
- Height: 13.75cm
- Width: 5.0cm
- Depth: 3.2cm
- SKU: B078XXGGJ8
- MPN: H1n
- InStock
- GBP83.00 valid at/until:
Review summary
- Zoom H1n Handy field recorder
- Overall I'm very pleased with this device nearly a year in!
- It has a fairly intuitive UI, though I had to work hard to find out how to get to settings!
- It is light and easy to hold in the hand.
- It feels a bit flimsy and the head is quite large.
- It can only save lossless as WAV rather than FLAC.
- It cannot charge NiMH in situ.
- It has no substantial built-in recording memory.
- I could do without the chirpy "Goodbye See You!" sign-off.
- Pros:
- small
- easy to use once familiar!
- Cons:
- needs 2xAAA cells
- no built-in charger
- no substantial built-in storage
- Rating: 4.5/5
- Published:
- Updated:
2020-12-18: Zoom (Not That One)
I still have somewhere my previous unsuccessful attempt to put together a no-moving-parts field audio recorder and mic, USB connected, many years ago. What audio I have collected in the field has often been with a camera, sometimes in combination with video or stills.
For the EOU Earth Notes podcast I upped my game significantly with the Blue Yeti mic and 16-bit 48ksps stereo recording.
And then I got to borrow an Olympus LS-P4 field recorder (thanks Deniz): Diarycast - Conscious Uncouping - Travel. That showed my what could be done with a good, compact device. (And I haven't filled its 8GB internal storage yet, five months later!)
Lockdown notwithstanding, the Olympus loan was not intended to be a long one. After months of reasonable use, I think I will want more of the same!
On I ordered from Amazon for £82.10 (ex-VAT) a Zoom H1n/UK Handy Recorder, and for £9.45 (ex-VAT) a YOUSHARES Zoom H1n Recorder Foam & Furry Indoor/Outdoor Windscreen Muff, Pop Filter/Wind Cover Shield Fits Zoom H1n & H1.
Postage was free, the order total was £91.55 including VAT, and delivery was on .
I am using an 8GB micro-SD card that I have to hand. The H1n did not understand what was on it (a RPi image probably!) and offered to format it, which seems to have worked. The internal store is very limited.
A pair of alkaline AAA cells is supplied with the Zoom. I also have some NiMH rechargeables on their way. (The Zoom works with alkaline, NiMH and lithium cells.)
(For reference, the Olympus LS-P4 was (when I bought the H1n) readily available for ~£140 including VAT and postage.)
2020-12-21: Initial Impressions
Today has been a busy day. So not much time to do much after the H1n arrived early afternoon.
I put in the AAA cells. It took a few button presses to set the date and time. Then a couple more to get the recording mode to 16-bit 48ksps lossless WAV.
I took a couple of very short voice samples (with the Zoom mics pointing away from me), one bare and one with the fake fur muff on.
I then took my one-mile 20-minute exercise walk around the cemetery carrying the H1n pointing in front of me, with the fur muff in place. I had adjusted the recording level with the dial at the top of the H1n (much much easier than the LS-P4) as suggested so that the recording level is kinda sorta half-scale (-12dB).
I note that the H1n feels a little less solid and robust than the metal-case LS-P4.
The weights seem similar though the LS-P4 is specified as 75g and the H1n as 60g (main unit only). Note that the former requires one AAA, the latter two.
The H1n is also significantly larger than the LS-P4 (13.75 × 5.0 × 3.2cm vs 10.9 x 4.0 x 1.4cm), especially the bulbous head, which would make it difficult to put in my jeans pocket as I felt that I safely could with the LS-P4.
The H1n's UI (eg the menus) seems better than the LS-P4's, and generally more intuitive so far.
2020-12-22: First Light
The moment of truth: trying to get yesterday's recordings off the H1n!
I have found a USB-A to micro-USB cable and plugged one end in at the H1n, the other and my MacBook Air. I turned on the H1n and selected the "card reader" option presented, and the Mac now shows an H1N_SD device in the file system, hurrah!
A little exploring into the H1n's file system shows three WAV files:
% ls -al /Volumes/H1N_SD/STEREO/FOLDER01/ total 454400 drwxrwxrwx 1 dhd staff 32768 21 Dec 13:18 . drwxrwxrwx 1 dhd staff 32768 21 Dec 13:18 .. -rwxrwxrwx 1 dhd staff 817920 21 Dec 13:19 ZOOM0001.WAV -rwxrwxrwx 1 dhd staff 625152 21 Dec 13:26 ZOOM0002.WAV -rwxrwxrwx 1 dhd staff 231084032 21 Dec 13:49 ZOOM0003.WAV
I have copied them to the Mac to listen to them with Audacity. Under a minute for over 200MB, I think.
I have changed the filename format for future recordings to be date/time-based.
Access to the settings menu is by holding down the 'delete' button while turning the device on.
While here I have also set an auto-off time of 5 minutes, and did a "quick test" of the SD card, which passed.
Here are the very first two raw WAV files as-is!
The third recording is 20 minutes and 231MB, or ~11MB/min. So maybe the 8GB SD card can accommodate ~12h of this spec lossless recording.
The mediainfo utility reports:
% mediainfo ~/Downloads/FOLDER01/ZOOM0003.WAV General Complete name : / ... /FOLDER01/ZOOM0003.WAV Format : Wave File size : 220 MiB Duration : 20 min 3 s Overall bit rate mode : Constant Overall bit rate : 1 536 kb/s Producer : ZOOM Handy Recorder H1n Encoded date : 2020-12-21 13:29:26 Encoding settings : A=PCM,F=48000,W=16,M=stereo,T=ZOOM Handy Recorder H1n Audio Format : PCM Format settings : Little / Signed Codec ID : 1 Duration : 20 min 3 s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 1 536 kb/s Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz Bit depth : 16 bits Stream size : 220 MiB (100%)
(The muff seems to have done a very good job suppressing wind noise!)
The FLAC file spat out by Audacity is ~100MB, ie less than half the size.
Here it is, as FLAC, MP3 stereo and mono:
It's good enough to be turned into a bonus ambient podcast episode...
Here is a squirrel heard on today's walk (recording 4 on the H1n):
So far, so good!
2020-12-27: Side by Side
Today I took some very unscientific side-by-side captures in the field (well, the cemetery) on my walk today. These are completely unedited, and the recorders had the last settings I'd used on them, so recording levels don't match for example.
I equipped the LS-P4 with the spare (foam) muff that I have for the H1n, to even things up a little.
First pair: LS-P4 then H1n:
Second pair: LS-P4 then H1n:
I meant to take three pairs of samples but somehow turned on the H1n when I stopped the LS-P4. Cue 45 minutes (500MB!) of talking to myself, bumbling around the house, etc, until I found the H1n still in my coat pocket in the hall. I'm not admitting to any of this, but the H1n seems to be quite sensitive!
I had also taken a few clips on the H1n solo over the last couple of days.
Jackdaws:
Crows:
2021-08-06: Good AAAs
The 2xAAA alkaline cells supplied with the H1n have gotten me this far, including Herne Bay. Battery charge state is now showing as 2 bars out of 3 on the display. I'm charging some NiMH AAAs as to-hand replacements.
This is a slight disadvantage compared to the Olympus, where the device contained a built-in charger. So all I needed was a USB cable and (say) my laptop to ensure a topped-up battery at all times...
2024-05-19: Erasure
While recording the small talks that I organised at Kingston Efficient Home Show I now realise that I actually filled the 8GB and so lost material!
I purged files from to now. (I left the very first 3 files in place, from .)
The audio just purged in on my laptop and being captured in backups, so is not lost to posterity!