ZOOM F3 VS. ZOOM H1e – ME66

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Stimulated by a fair comment received after a previous post on the “Field Recording” Facebook Group, I performed a test by recording simultaneously with the two ZOOM H1e and F3 recorders using a Sennheiser ME66 microphone on both. To power the ME66 on the H1e I used a 1.5 volt AA battery on the K6 power module while on the F3 I used the direct 48V power supply from the F3.
Entrambe le parti di file sono state normalizzate a -0.1dB.
First half starts with F3, second part with H1e.
For now, enjoy this simple test!

0:00-0:45 F3+ME66 – 0:46-1:30 H1e+ME66

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Here I selected a small part of the track where there is no nightingale song and raised it by +20dB to see the difference in noise between the two recorders with the incoming signal from the two ME66s powered in the manner described previously. The “noise” in H1e is thus well highlighted.

I believe the noise detected with the H1e is mostly due to the noise of the ME 66 microphone when powered with a 1.5 volt battery rather than Ph 48v Phantom power.

I then ran a simple noise-only test.
In the spectrogram below you can clearly see the difference in noise between the two types of power supply after I performed a noise-only test. The noise spectrum perfectly matches the one highlighted in the signal file above.

Unfortunately there is no other way to use this microphone on the H1e, other than using an external power supply such as the Art Phantom 2 Pro.