Sound Recorder Recomendations

[JerryC]

I'm looking to buy a decent digital sound recorder for - wait for it - recording railroad sounds. For years I have used a Sony HDR video camera with very good results. Recently i've found that my Nikon D3200 has very good sound recorder capabilities. But I think I also need a dedicated standalone solution. If you have any suggestions or reviews of equipment that you have used, feel free to post them. I could also use feed back on Apps and Microphones that would work with cell phones. I have a Galaxy S4, and have some recordings with it, but the onboard mike is terrible and gets a lot of high-end hiss.

[BNSFdude]

On the cheap get a Tascam DR-05 with a wind screen.

[JerryC]

I found a website that had sound samples from several different recorders, and based on their results I settled on the mid-priced Zoom H4nSP. I didn't get a chance to test it in the field yet, but it seems to have excellent pick up. In a quiet 16x24 room, it picked up my wife pecking on the keyboard of her laptop, clothes tumbling in the dryer in the washroom at the other end of the house, and even birds chirping outside - all without the motor noise associated with a video camera. I'm suspecting though that the device will also be very sensitive to wind noise, so I ordered a Dead Kitten windscreen for it.

A gripe that I do have with this thing though is that it comes with nothing else besides the box and manual. No patch cords, no USB cable, no storage, not even a power adapter. The battery life is stated as 6 hours at maximum record quality settings, so i'd rather not be wasting battery time while connected to a computer to transfer or edit files.