I don't think it was the foam that improved the quality; it was having a high-quality mic in the first place. Minidiscs have been the standard for radio journalists for years now, but they're rapidly being replaced by high-end digital recorders like the Edirol M-1, the Marantz PMD660, and the M-Audio Microtrack. The last two will accept high-quality microphones with phantom power (preamp) requirements. The quality will be head and shoulders over a standard voice recorder.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I don't think it was the foam that improved the quality; it was having a high-quality mic in the first place. Minidiscs have been the standard for radio journalists for years now, but they're rapidly being replaced by high-end digital recorders like the Edirol M-1, the Marantz PMD660, and the M-Audio Microtrack. The last two will accept high-quality microphones with phantom power (preamp) requirements. The quality will be head and shoulders over a standard voice recorder.