>>1562108>chatted on /prod/that's actually quite likely, I used to love good ol' /praud/
The DR-40 and smaller recorders do have noisy preamps. Good for close-miking but noisy preamps are definitely not very good for ambience. The new generation DR-40s have much better preamps, but the larger recorders (DR-60, DR-70, and above) have always had the good preamps in them, so no noticeable noise!
When I was using the DR-40 still I got around the noise issue by having external preamps (Triton Fetheads) that were powered by phantom power. It meant I needed an external phantom supply though so the rig was a big clumsier (external phantom to power the mics and then DR-40 phantom to power the Fetheads). I didn't have the dosh to afford a new recorder at the time and I had plenty of good reasons to buy the Fetheads anyway for my ribbon mics so it was worth it. But after spending so much time lugging all that shit around and trying to keep it clean and dry while I setup all these different components I finally saved up for the DR-70D, which along with my AT4022 mics was really a game changer.
Pic is the original rig with the external phantom and Fetheads. The tripod is sitting in about 6 inches of swamp water and it was a root mat that kept slowly sinking under my weight so I had to keep moving my weight around while I setup so the recorder wouldn't fall into the drink.
