Really nice sound. I have been using this in the field for about 2 years and am still surprised at the quality the FR-2 sound capture and reproduction.

All the things I needed except a few more channels but then we start talking bigger bucks

Once the drive has been initialized (I use a 5GB PCMIA Toshiba drive), it's ready to go. Loses a point for the location of the buttons as the it can be a bit fiddly when rugged up in its case.

Solid, well-built ready for action.

Does more than I expected at a really reasonable price.

I haven't needed to use support myself but I haven't heard glowing things about Fostex.

It's not going to win any beauty pagents but its performance is sexxxxy

DJ, sound designer, sound recordist

Trance, progressive, alternative

It feels cheap but it isn't an issue because it also needs to be very light. I can wear this thing over my shoulder all day with no strain on my back or shoulder.

Recording Engineer

Dialog

I bought it because I was sick of dat. I was worth every penny. The preamps and line-ins are the quietest of any field recorder under 2 grand. If I need to record quieter matieral, such as room tones or something subtle like a pocketwatch, I use an external preamp with a lower noise floor. But for most recording situations, I just plug right into the recorder and go. I only wish the line-in jack had a lower noise floor. It's quieter than the mic-in, but not as quiet as the average Sound Devices pre-amp, so upgrading to a quieter external pre-amp won't get you more than another -15 db of range.

Because it can use standard AA batteries, I never get stuck out in the field without power. I can always grab a set at any grocery store if all of my rechargeables run dry. The limiters are ok. The menu system is easy, once you get used to it.

I only need to flip two switches: power and record. When I'm done, I can just yank the flashcard and plug it into a reader and bam, done. The preamps are easy to adjust. All of the important settings are available through simple toggle switches on the top.

I've probably recorded at least a thousand solid hours of audio on the thing and given it a good beating. It's about the size of phone book, so lugging it around is annoying. I wish it had a metal housing. Some of the knobs are a little wobbly. However, the only real wear and tear I've seen has been wierdness with the headphone jack. I'd give it another year of abuse before I need to use an external preamp to monitor reliably or crack the thing open to re-solder the jack.

It certainly far outclasses any M-audio, murantz or Edirol recorder. I'd buy it again, but the new Tascam recorder is smaller, has more features and costs $200 less. Then again, the Tascam has a slightly higher noise floor and I don't know if it's built as reliably as the Fostex.

I once tried to update the firmware as directed i the manual and online support. It didn't work. The recorder just locked up until I restarted it. However, I never really needed to upgrade the firmware in the first place. That was a year ago and it's never faltered, so who cares. When I first bought it, I had problems with the PCMIA harddrive failing whenever I tried to record at 24/96. A lot of people seem to have run into that issue. The PCMIA drive simply doesn't write fast enough to keep up with the data rate of the audio. That's a flaw with PCMIA drives though. Recording at 24/48 worked every time. 6 months ago, I purchased a more current 2GB type-2 flash card. It can record at any sample rate/bit depth I want without any trouble. The write speed is about 2-3 times that of a PCMIA drive. The lack of moving parts extends the battery life by almost 50%. I still keep the PCMIA drive plugged in for longer sessions.

It's a tank. Pretty doesn't get the job done though. It works well. That's all that counts.