Review: Zoom F8N

I want to start this review by responding to some statements I have heard about Zoom devices. They often get labelled as ‘cheap’ alternatives, or only suitable for amateurs, with critics citing various issues from noisy preamps to build quality and just a general feeling that Zoom products are not suitable for professionals.

I have been recording sound for 20 years, my libraries are used by many of the biggest producers in the world and yes, a significant number of those sounds were captured on Zoom devices.

I am not going to claim that a $1000 Zoom recorder is in the same league as a $6000 Nagra or Sound Devices machine, but if you are obsessing about the ticket price of equipment then I would suggest you are focusing on the wrong thing. 

When I recorded a series of rare aircraft, including a Spitfire, Kittyhawk and oddities such as the Australian-designed Boomerang and Wirraway, I was able to record the interior of these planes for one reason only; because a Zoom H1 was small enough for a pilot to safely and happily carry it in a leg pocket while flying. 

The ‘best’ piece of equipment for any job is the one that lets you get the job done. I have strapped a Zoom H4n onto the bottom of a skateboard, I have attached various Zoom devices to cars and motorbikes, and there is a Zoom H2n which fell off a boat and found its final resting place at the bottom of a lake in Melbourne.

I prize the quality of a recording very highly and so I am of course very interested in how the preamps on the F8n perform; but I place a high value on the ability to capture the sounds needed, and that often demands a variety of devices for a host of situations. For over 10 years I have found many reasons to use Zoom devices.

SIZE WISE

Before I even switched the device on, I was impressed by its size. I pulled out my H4 to compare. It was the first Zoom device I purchased — over 10 years ago — and frankly, there’s not a huge difference in size between the two. Remarkable, considering the significant difference in capabilities.

For the Zoom F8n I did something I rarely do; I started by reading the manual. Usually I prefer to learn by doing, but I wanted to be thorough with this device and make sure I understood what it was capable of and how the manufacturer thinks it should be used. 

It revealed a solution to a problem I’d been manually solving for 20 years. Back then, when I hired my first portable recorder (a portable DAT) the very helpful woman providing the gear showed me a useful trick. By using a Y splitter cable, I could take a mono mic signal and split it into two channels with different input levels so if a sudden loud sound occurred, I would have a second ‘safety’ copy of the sound at a lower level to avoid peaking. 

The F8n has this functionality built-in. A single mic can have its signal duplicated onto a second channel at a lower input level. This is bloody brilliant and would save me a fortune in splitter cables and messing around with extra gear. 

The more time I spent with the Zoom F8n the more its available functions and their accessibility, became its strongest feature. It has a clear, easy-to-use interface; one of the best I’ve used on a device of this type. The colour display makes discerning information at a glance much easier and the simple rotary dial with built-in push button makes back-and-forth navigation quick and intuitive. 

Obviously recording quality is critical, but as a tool to be used the F8n appears flexible and reliable.

BACKWARDS LAYOUT

There is one thing that bugged me about the F8n: The layout of the mic inputs is ‘wrong’. While it might seem like a small thing, for me, it’s a design flaw that could have been easily avoided.

At one point during testing I could not figure out why I was getting no signal. Everything was on, all the routing was correct, phantom power was activated, yet still no sound. I finally tracked down the problem. I had plugged my mic into Input 4 instead of Input 1. Huh? Why would I do that, and why does it matter to this review?

The F8n has four inputs on each side, 1-4 on the left and 5-8 on the right. The issue is how Zoom has arranged these inputs. On every device I have used if you turn the device so you are looking directly at the left-hand side, they read 1, 2, 3, 4 from left to right. The F8n has reversed this.

To me, this is a little like a car manufacturer flipping the brake and accelerator pedals around, you just don’t do it. There is a long-term established layout that everyone else seems to follow, so why change it? My Sound Devices 788 follows left to right, Nagra do, Tascam do, etc.

Much of my work over the years has been opportunistic. Oftentimes I’m driving or walking, sometimes not prepared for recording at all, when an event happens that I want to record. Manufacturers include pre-record buffers for exactly this type of scenario. In those instances, I have to respond quickly in order to capture the sound, reverting to habits built up over time. The reverse numbering scheme could make me miss a take. While in some ways this is trivial, it would also have been trivial for Zoom to have gotten it right in the first place.