Tascam DR-05X Stereo Handheld Digital Audio Portable Recorder and USB Audio Interface, Pro Field, AV, Music, Dictation Recorder

I bought the DR-05 back in 2011 and frequently used it for live band recordings. It died last week after 10+ yrs. I was tempted to try another brand but since I was happy with the quality of the TASCAM recordings, I stuck with TASCAM. For editing software, I use free Audacity and Studio One. Some of my recordings sound excellent. I also recorded my drums for youtube videos with the DR-05. This DR-05X has some extra features like brighter screen and added effects like reverb. I like the portability of the unit as it fits in my drumstick bag easily. The interface is very easy to use. The unit comes with batteries but does NOT include micro SD card and cable for PC. So, right out of the box, you cannot use the recorder unless you have a micro SD card on hand. The unit has no built-in memory. But for under a hundred bucks, I can't complain. I'll be happy if I get at least another 10 years out of this new unit. You can spend more on other recorders, but this little recorder is a great buy at this price point. One small issue - I had to return the first DR-05X I received due to the display light flickering. Amazon provided a replacement right away which works fine.

You know when i got it? I was a little disappointed cuz it look kinda cheap. The built in speaker doesn't give it any faith either. BUT!! i ordered some stereo small headset so i don't look suspicious out n about. Girl! U gotta use it with headsets to really hear the crazy quality behind this beast! I have it at 50% input n i can still hear myself breathing! The audio captured with this device is impressive as hell! I been capturing things my own ears cant! Literally picks up cars running at 2-3 blocks away. I am in my room n it picks up the motor of my fan at 10 feet away from it. Tried vaping in the room and at 1-2 feet away it picks up the button press, the heat up mechanism and even the circuitry powering on! Thats crazy! The left n right channels are very sensitive, u can walk around it n its like i am whispering to myself. This is the best pull of a trigger investment i ever done! To use with your phone? Dont forget to get a usb cable and a usb male c/lightning to usb A and power. Then go to settings and activate usb options. Your blogging will go up like crazy. I paired my rig with a bluetooth mic and i dual record environments and high quality sound effects. My door does like a very light creek sound but this thing turns that gentle sound into horror movie quality. If you are an audiophile? This is the best not to expensive option! Sd is up to 128gb no biggie u can just buy a stack for cheap. Would had liked it to be bluetooth but i know the usb will deliver just fine. No latency delay or crackling just raw audio. I highly recomend for anybody wanting a high quality mic option u can just strap to your body or camera n get better audio quality with phones etc. u may have to play with input, at lower input your voice sounds crisps n cleaner due to not picking up things miles away. Full input? Get yourself headphones that can handle the high pitch of everything all at once. I tested it in my room with close door. It picks up conversations through walls coming from the tv in the living room! Dont forget to buy the furry wind thingy it does not bring one. I chose no case option n just bought a pair of fleece socks. They keep my baby safe n cozy. Easy to take out and keep the accessories in the other sock.

I use this with a $20 lav mic in my motorcycle helmet. It's a Shoei Neotec 2 to be precise. I routed the mic in the helmet with a wire coming out the back of the helmet. Plug that into another wire down to my chest pocket where I have the Tascam. It works fantastic. The reason for the second wire is I don't always use this on every road trip and I don't want a long wire on my helmet all the time. Now, good wires is the key to this or you can get popping sounds with bad connections. My Harley is extremely loud so I needed this unit for proper voice vlogging. It just works. I don't try to wire this to my computer. I pop out the SD card and load it into my computer and upload the soundtrack straight to iMovie or Final Cut Pro X. Has served me well for a year and a half now. All my motorcycle videos, I'm using this. The 2 AA batteries work well and I can record multiple videos for over a week of daily use, usually an hour a day. I really haven't tracked the exact time I get, just know that I change the batteries out after about 10-15 hour long recordings as best I can remember, maybe shorter, maybe longer. I keep two spare batteries in the case holder I bought for this. I highly recommend this as an external recording device. GoPro cameras don't have the greatest mics when you are driving a Harley 70mph down the interstate. And I didn't like the external dongle for the newer GoPros. With this, I can use multiple cameras and one sound track of all of it. It's a good idea to give a sharp hand clap for a spike in the audio so you can link up the voice with the video. Just makes editing easier. I have no idea how good this Tascam is for studio recording because that's not what I use it for. But if you make YT videos with multiple cameras, this is the ticket. Highly recommend it for that. I did try to use it on one of my gun range shooting videos but the gun shot reports were too much. The GoPro mics do a good job of stopping the noise spikes on gun shots at the range. But for the speaking part of those videos, this works great there too. Anyway, just my experience with this unit. Still works fantastic a year and a half later.

I’ve been using the Tascam DR-05X for a few weeks now, mostly to record voice memos, interviews, and some casual field recordings, and I’ve been really impressed. The built-in microphones are bigger than I expected for a handheld device, and that makes a real difference — my voice comes through loud and clear, with very little background fuzz. Even in quieter environments, it picks up speech naturally, without sounding too tinny or distant. I didn’t need to fiddle with advanced settings to get decent quality, which was a relief. One thing I really appreciate is how flexible the power options are. I can just pop in AA batteries and go, which is perfect for recording on the move, but when I’m at my desk, I can plug it into USB power and keep recording without worrying about battery life. It’s small enough to toss in a backpack, but it doesn’t feel cheap. There are a ton of settings and recording modes, like different mic angles and file formats, which I haven’t fully explored yet — but it’s nice knowing they’re there if I need more control later. For my needs, the internal memory was plenty. I recorded over an hour of audio and didn’t even come close to running out, so I didn’t have to buy an SD card, which saved me time and money. That said, the menu system takes a little getting used to — it’s not the most intuitive at first, and I accidentally changed a setting or two just by brushing the buttons. And while the sound is great for speech, I’m not sure how well it’d handle music with a lot of high or low frequencies. But for what I’m using it for — clear voice recording with minimal hassle — the DR-05X is a solid choice. It just works, and that’s what I wanted.

The first unit I received had a 2.5 dB difference in volume between the two microphones. I sent it back for a replacement, and the replacement had a 1.0 dB difference between the two microphones. Wondering if perhaps I was expecting too much, I pulled out two bare $5 electret microphone elements and wired them to a 1/4" TRS connector and plugged them in. The levels were within 0.1 dB of each other. So it's not a problem with the ADC in the device, it's just the internal microphones not being well-matched to each other. Figuring that I wouldn't get anything better, I kept that one, thinking that I could just replace the internal microphones with my own electret microphones if I'm ever sufficiently bothered, but so far I've just been fixing the difference between the two channels with software. There's a lot of videos on the internet complaining about radio interference but I haven't had that problem, which makes me think Tascam fixed it. The recording quality is great. I record in 24-bit PCM mode, and just set the recording volume to 48 and forget it. It's low enough that even the loudest sounds won't peak the recording, and high enough that even the quietest sounds the microphone can detect are a mile above the noise floor of the ADC. So I can just record without worry and then, later on a PC, try to get the volume level perfect. Unfortunately the limited range of the on-screen volume meter, and the fact that it makes you press record twice, really tries to encourage you to do otherwise, but trust me, just set it to 48 and try not to forget to press record twice, and your recordings will always sound perfect after you amplify them to whatever volume you actually want them to be. Other than that, the software on the device seems good enough. The menus are logically ordered and while it's a bit confusing to try to play back recordings and seek through them (though there are two modes for this, with which one is better depending on whether you have one long recording or many short recordings to go through), it does work and for the most part I just want to copy files to my PC and listen to them there anyway. Overall I'm quite happy with the device and would definitely just buy another one if this one were to stop working someday, but I do hope that if that happens, though I do hope that, if that day comes, Tascam is shipping them with microphones that are well matched to each other.

I’m absolutely blown away by the Tascam DR-05X. As someone who’s been into recording for years, I was looking for something portable that didn’t compromise on sound quality, and this does not disappoint. The stereo microphones capture incredible detail, whether I’m recording music, field audio, or dictations. It’s compact but feels sturdy and professional. Plus, the USB interface feature makes it a breeze to connect to my computer for direct recording or editing. Highly recommend for anyone who needs an all-in-one recording solution!

All the features I want. None of the ones I don’t (or, if they’re there, they’re buried in menus - where they belong). Direct to MP3 recording is helpful to me (and saves on card space). I use this at our medium size church where I often need to record smaller classes, etc. This is perfect to place on a podium or music stand to capture a leader’s message or whatever. The mp3 recording uses a comparatively much smaller file size, so I never worry about running out of storage. I can set up the recorder hours before an event, start recording, and grab it the next DAY to import the audio to the DAW to edit. Auto gain works great (both for the built in mics and for line-in recording). Controls are straightforward and much less fussy than most of the other portable recorders I’ve used through the years. If this recorder breaks today, I’ll buy another one tomorrow.

I chose the Tascam DR-05X over the comparable Zoom H1n recorder because the Tascam is capable of recording to microSDXC cards, which enables it to record for a longer time period without switching cards. However, I now regret my decision, and I am returning the Tascam to Amazon. Why? The sound quality is terrible. I play in a band, and the sound volume caused the recording to clip even when the Tascam was set to the lowest possible recording level. When I put on the built-in limiter, the recording no longer clipped...but the sound quality was incredibly poor. Muddy and muffled. I literally got a much better-sounding recording with my smartphone. I would add that the Tascam's user interface is very poorly designed and counter intuitive. And the built-in light goes off very quickly to save batteries. That's great, except it goes off SO quickly that you don't have time to find what you're looking for before it goes off. By the way, both the Tascam and the Zoom recorders say you can transfer sound files directly from the device onto your computer. Not true -- not if you have a Macintosh anyway. However, you can take the SD card out of the device and use that to transfer files to your computer, using the adapter that comes with the SD cards.

Have been using mine every day for many years now, and I cannot find fault with my Tascam DR-O5. The sound quality is brilliant and the electronics are peerless. The only gripe is the cover for the battery compartment is poor and needs tightening up in design, apart from that - 10/10.

Klasse Messgerät - sehr gutes Preis- Leistungs- Verhältnis !

No puedo decir que no me haya gustado algo es perfecto para lo que lo quiero para publicar podcast sobre todo si trabajas al aire libre

le doy un 10, precio calidad, excelente grabador, muy facil de usar y excelente calidad de sonido que tiene lo recomiendo mucho y muy buen precio vale la pena

Perfect for interviewing and great sound