The actor who was in the last frame of that commercial who was looking out into the sun was a friend of mine . Very strange to see . <| sep |> Yeah . I asked the same question of one of my professors in college about 4 years ago and the response was basically preamps nowadays . As others on here have said TascamZoom recorders are cool little work horses but the amps are really noisy . So a field mixer will get you more gain with less noise . But now that virtually every entry level professional mixer has a recorder built in with quality preamps field mixers as standalones are pretty much a thing of the past . <| sep |> well then you should get bigger ones <| sep |> Do you know what soft cap means ? <| sep |> There ' s a Crucible sparrow ? Hmmm .