Andy and Guru, thanks for your input. I'm not at all dreamy eyed myself about the MiniDisc - it was just a cheap solution and gave me the opportunity to have one mic near the source and use the on-camera for ambient (also if either cut out at any point there is still some sound). I've not had a problem with drift (and I understand that even two digital sources will drift unless physically time synced) but I've never recorded anything long enough for that to matter - I tend to record in short bursts on camera but leave the MD recording, chop up and sync later.

However, I do have a problem with the additional noise (esp hiss) introduced by conversion to analogue then back to digital and a particular problem last weekend where loud sections of a choir I recorded introduced the sort of digital watery noise you get when you're over zealous with FFT noise reduction. It's not audible direct from the MD player, but however I transfer it occurs in the wav.

Whilst I'm no pro and what I do doesn't really matter in the great scheme of things I don't want the frustration of getting home and discovering I've giot an unusable soundtrack. Hence my decision to look around for a digital alternative. I'll investigate the PMD660.

Edit (removed commenta bout H2)

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Tim