I bought this mainly as a scratchpad to record ideas, but I may end up using this for demos, due to the simplicity of use. It will be great for location recording, then dumping the files to my computer for mixing and

Sound
Sound is comparable to most other 44.1kHz, 16-bit recorders, nothing too special. The mic preamps have limited gain however (haven't tried the phantom power yet) and I would put them a little below the level of something like the Mackie 1202VLZ I used to have. If you are recording acoustic guitars with a dynamic mic, you have to turn the gain nearly all the way up to get reasonable signal levels, which adds to the noise. The headphone amps sound okay and get plently loud without distorting. Internal effects sound okay (only if they are used sparingly), and can be used for input monitoring without printing them to the track. The sound starts to shine when the MR-8 is fed by an external preamp. I use my Gordon Model 5, which kills the internal preamps, and the unit pretty much records the sound that you give it. In this situation, professional-quality results can be achieved.

Features
My main gripe is the lack of any type of effects loop and no EQ. The only solution I have found to this so far is to pan a channel to one side, send the signal to the unbalanced output and effects unit, then record the incoming signal to a different channel. This works fine, but makes it impossible to monitor… read more the effects with headphones before recording, since the dry signal is always on one side. Fostex could have solved this by having an option to send a channel's signal to the output but not to the headphones. I guess the headphones and output are on the same circuit, though. As far as the lack of EQ, I'm not sure what Fostex was thinking on this one. In most cases, it is simply not possible to get a good production unless some type of corrective EQ is added. If they just had a simple effects loop, I would be alright with the exclusion of the EQ, but they make it extremely tough (but possible) on you to add EQ, unless you export the files to your computer. Since I bought the unit to get around computer mixing, this lowers their score a little bit. 2-channels is obviously not enough to record a full-featured demo, since drums need more than 2 channels. Therefore, I recommend doing drum tracks on your computer, then importing them to the MR-8 with the .wav manager provided by Fostex. Other than that, 2 tracks is really all you need. Just forget doing a quality live-band recording, unless you are feeding off of another mixer's output. The battery capability is awesome, and allows for easy concert-taping and location recording. Metronome button on the front is a nice addition over the previous version. The operating system is intuitive and responds fairly fast to commands. The 3 mastering effects they provide are a complete joke!

Ease of Use
If you have any idea of what you are doing, you will be recording within a few minutes of opening the box. In my opinion, this is one of the major selling points of the unit. I have more expensive, much higher-quality equipment, but will likely use this more since it is so simple.

Quality
Buttons seem a little bit fragile. I haven't had it that long, but I am predicting the buttons will be the first thing to go. Seems a little bit cheaply made, but should work fine as long as it's taken care of. Hopefully, if any of the buttons break, it is one of the 3 mastering effect buttons, since those will never be used again.

Manufacturer Support
n/a

The Wow Factor
Looks a lot better than the red one. Easily small enough to fit this, some batteries, and a couple of mics inside of a backpack, then you are carrying a functional recording studio.

Musical Background:
Long-time Hobbyist

Musical Style:
Acoustic, Rock, Alternative, Country, some Jazz read less