These things aren't bad for certain things, I'd use it for some field recording and if it gets up to 96kHz that's pretty good. Although...16 bits...meh

Just what every concert-bootlegger-with-more-money-than-sense needs!

There are a whole bunch of these things already on the market, and Sony and a few others seem to be late to the party. I'm a little surprised by the assesment that $599 is "rock bottom", since my Edirol R-09 lists for $399, and has Really Good Mics. A field recorder is only as good as the mics, after all.

Go with the Edirol R-09. It is a great unit. Its rock solid. It makes FANTASTIC sounding recordings. Is well supported. And it is expandable. 'Nuf said.

@Windhawk: Oh, and the Edirol supports insanely high uncompressed bit-rates. It also supports compressed native MP3 recording, but that's your call.

I'm glad to see the cross-mic set-up (it makes me feel good about my Zoom H4).

Unfortunately, Sony's chief counsel is about to declare "anything you record with this device constitutes copyright infringement"...

The R-09 is to the Sony D1 as the Corvette Z06 is to the Ferrari 575M. They're both fast, and the Corvette is great in it's own right but it's never gonna be as good.

The R-09 is what you get when you need good sound on a budget. The D1 is what you get when you need great sound. The R-09 is noisy, the internal mics aren't horrid but certainly don't get anywhere near the D1.

If the D50 is even half as good as the D1, it's going to blow everything else out of the water... and everyone knows Sony's street prices are bunk. It'll sell for $450 and will be lightyears better than anything close to the price. Also, it's not ONLY 16 bit.. it does 24.

By the way: The D1 had it's debut while I was in Tokyo. It was Sooooo tempting to buy one and finally record all the JR Yamanote 'jingles' in pristine sound. Yeah, I am that much of a dork.

My Edirol R1 is rock solid- but far from perfect. The DCM50 is not nearly as sext as the D1. In the end I don't care if the floor noise is low and it's start up time is quick.

May finally be time to replace my PCM-M1 DAT Recorder.