Pros: A high-quality digital recording accessory for video-ready iPods, complete with a flexible, detachable microphone and an integrated speaker. Easy to use design provides optional access to 3.5mm port for stereo mic or line-in recording, impressive voice and line-in recording quality, full integration with iPod’s simple menus and iTunes storage. Black- and white-colored versions to match today’s 5G iPods.
Cons: No pass-through port for simultaneous charging and recording, only connects to caseless iPod. Packed-in omnidirectional mic is only monaural. While more affordable than only current competitor, price is still high by iPod recorder add-on standards.
Updated: Hear the MicroMemo for yourself in a series of iLounge audio tests! Freshly delivered to iLounge headquarters, XtremeMac’s MicroMemo Digital Recorder for iPod ($60) is the third of three high-quality voice recorders known to be under development for the fifth-generation iPod, and the second we’ve received for testing. Like Griffin’s iTalkPro and Belkin’s TuneTalk Stereo, MicroMemo taps into the new iPod’s 16-bit, 22kHz mono and 44kHz stereo recording capabilities, but has a few very important unique features, and will also sell for a $20 lower-than-expected price when it ships in early July.
If you’re looking for a recording accessory for your fifth-generation iPod, you now have a second option. Two months ago, we took an extended First Look at XtremeMac’s MicroMemo High-Fidelity Digital Audio Recorder for iPod ($60) – a competitor to Belkin’s recently-released TuneTalk Stereo (iLounge rating: B+) and Griffin’s announced but still unreleased iTalkPro. This week, the final version of MicroMemo is shipping to stores, and though it’s almost exactly the same as what we looked at before, we opted to wait for the finished, packaged unit to update the First Look into a finalized review. When you’ve finished reading, you can download this clip to hear the MicroMemo for yourself as we put it through a series of audio tests.
Like Belkin and Griffin, XtremeMac was faced with three challenges when Apple released the fifth-generation iPod late last year: the new iPod was physically incompatible with earlier top-mounting, low-quality microphone accessories, contained a new menu system with two better-than-ever recording quality settings – “high” (16-bit stereo, 44.1 KHz) and “low” (16-bit monaural, 22.050HKz) – and required developers to use a new recording authentication chip that only Apple could provide. Consequently, companies had to design new bottom-mounting add-ons featuring higher-quality microphones, and then had to wait for parts from Apple, a process that took more than eight months, frustrating iPod-loving podcasters and average consumers alike. Only recently have Belkin and XtremeMac released their recorders; Griffin’s iTalkPro is currently missing in action.
MicroMemo: Key Features
Thankfully, XtremeMac hit the ground running with MicroMemo, which is currently available in a black version; a white version will follow soon. Adding a TuneTalk Stereo-like single inch to the iPod’s height, our black review unit is slightly thicker than a 30GB iPod and thinner than a 60GB model, otherwise matching each model’s curves and width quite nicely. It is less visibly complex than the TuneTalk Stereo, with only a single button – a now silver “X Man” XtremeMac logo, on its front – and has no adapters, ports or switches on its top or bottom save the standard iPod Dock Connector.
Aesthetics aside, we were surprised that the company – a first-timer in iPod recording devices, by comparison with four-time recorder developer Belkin and three-timer Griffin – out-thought both of its competitors on key features in this new generation. By luck or design, it has released the only 5G recording accessory to include both a microphone and a speaker for instant previewing of recorded content, a feature combination that worked especially well in Griffin’s earlier iTalk accessories for 3G and 4G iPods, and has been done better in MicroMemo. First, there’s XtremeMac’s standalone omnidirectional microphone, both flexible and detachable, found on the device’s left side. Though stabilizing grooves on the microphone allow it to be inserted only upwards or downwards into the port, you can thereafter bend it into your preferred position in front, back, or off to the side of the iPod. You can also disconnect it entirely to reveal a 3.5mm minijack-style input port and a switch.
The switch above the port is labelled “Line” and “Mic,” which like the Autogain switch on Belkin’s TuneTalk Stereo lets you toggle gain levels between line and microphone input, one setting appropriate if you’re connecting a CD player or other constant output level device to MicroMemo, the other appropriate for microphones. Keeping the switch properly set is important to producing good-sounding recordings.
MicroMemo’s most distinctive feature is hidden under the unit’s front metal grille: unlike Belkin’s and Griffin’s latest offerings, XtremeMac includes a small speaker that enables your iPod to instantly play back recordings (or music). Overall, the speaker is sufficient for audio previews and occasional low-volume listening – a little smoother and less tinny than the one in the old 3G/4G iTalk accessories, though not quite as loud. In an apparent effort to limit battery drain and/or prevent you from having to constantly adjust volume levels, the speaker defaults as “off” and turns on only when you hold down the X Man button for 2 seconds. This only needs to be done once per connection of the accessory to the iPod. Pressed quickly, the button instead calls up the iPod’s recording screen no matter where you are in its other menus.
MicroMemo: Key Omissions and Audio Quality
MicroMemo’s back is shown here – simple, and lacking for extra features, buttons, or switches. In fact, with the exception of the big flexible mic and noteworthy speaker, XtremeMac’s design and pack-in approach is simpler than Belkin’s TuneTalk Stereo by a substantial margin, and some of Belkin’s “frills” are missing here. For instance, Belkin pioneered a case-friendly Dock Connector plug that lets you use TuneTalk with or without a case on your iPod, and also included a simple plastic stand to hold your iPod upright during recording.
XtremeMac doesn’t include either of these things; the recorder snaps on a bare (or InvisibleShielded) iPod’s bottom, and its mic turns upwards if you need to move something around. Belkin’s approach was better on both of these small but practical points.
More significantly, MicroMemo does not have a pass-through port for simultaneous recording and charging, a feature addressed by Belkin with a mini-USB port and cable – you needed to provide the charger. XtremeMac’s approach means that you can only record with MicroMemo until your iPod’s battery runs down: on a full charge, a 30GB iPod can record for roughly 2 continuous hours, and a 60GB iPod for around 3.5, which is far less than the total capacity of either model’s hard disk. Though some people – particularly those prone to recording from their iPods with less than a full charge – will mind, it’s our view that this won’t be a killer limitation for most users. However, if you have a need for longer recordings, or tend to record when your iPod’s not at its peak, consider TuneTalk Stereo instead.
Finally, and unlike both Belkin’s and Griffin’s designs, MicroMemo’s included microphone is monaural rather than stereo – another point of potential controversy for some users. In short, the lack of a stereo microphone means that you can’t take full advantage of the iPod’s new stereo recording mode unless you connect a different microphone or audio device to the line/mic port. But after testing both of MicroMemo’s competitors and considering this issue, we’ve reached a surprising conclusion: on balance, XtremeMac made the correct choice here. Despite including twin mics in each of their designs, TuneTalk Stereo and the prototype iTalkPro provide very little stereo separation during voice and other recordings, making the feature more of a gimmick than a bonus. Though we weren’t fond of Apple’s old 8KHz, 3G/4G iPod monaural voice recording mode, the problem for everyday use turned out to be the pairing of low-quality microphones with a low sampling rate, not the lack of stereo.
In most situations, we found that XtremeMac’s single good microphone produced great-sounding audio – voice recordings with the final version of MicroMemo were richer in bass and more natural-sounding than those done with TuneTalk Stereo, and displayed a lower base level of noise. Although XtremeMac doesn’t tout any sort of automatic gain adjustment feature in MicroMemo’s manual or packaging, the aggregate quality of distance microphone recordings made with the unit compared roughly to TuneTalk Stereo’s, and were sometimes actually better, as MicroMemo doesn’t pick up iPod hard disk whirring and clicking sounds to nearly the same extent as Belkin’s microphones do, a distraction from TuneTalk’s ability to focus on recording only distant subjects.
MicroMemo’s line-level recording also proved impressive: using an audio splitter, we played a test track using one 5G iPod and recorded it simultaneously using a TuneTalk Stereo and a MicroMemo. The MicroMemo’s recording was closer in volume and clarity to the original file in our iTunes library – basically indistinguishable – while the TuneTalk recording wasn’t as loud and dynamic.
