 I just stopped by the Zoom booth because I wanted to tell a story about the Zoom H2 that I got many years ago and Donald Burr showed me how to use it as a USB microphone. I made the silliest little video in my bathroom of how to do this and it's one of my most viewed videos. So the Zoom products are fantastic. These are small recorders and I'm here in the Zoom booth with Ross Harmbuckle to talk about what they have that's new since I've last been by. Yeah thanks you know we've had a couple of new things we've grown from the H2 same basic philosophy still handheld portable recorders now we've got something like the H5 where you'll have a stereo mic included but now they're modular so it can be an XY mic or the mid-side mic you see here we've got a number of accessories you can use as well so if you just need two additional XLR inputs or a shotgun microphone a bunch of different things now that you can plug in straight to the top of the H5. Okay let me show this before you do that turn this and pull it pull it off again show him the connector so it's got looks like a proprietary connector there. It is a proprietary connector so you do need to use our Zoom accessories with it. That's fine but I just want to show how that worked so he's pulling the top of this off right now it's got kind of a little ball mic on top what does that call? Yeah so this is a stereo mic it's a mid-side it's a microphone technique so XY would be sort of a a fixed stereo capture so you've got let's say a 90 degree stereo image or 120 degree stereo image so that's getting me and you but nothing else right right it's really taking a left right sample of your audio landscape what a mid-side technique is going to do is still a stereo image but it's going to allow you to define how wide or how narrow your stereo image is and you can do that live in real time or in post if you'd like. Wow so now there's a bunch of buttons and dials on the front of these crazy things here. Sure it is still as easy as ever to operate so simply select which channels you want to record enable so in this case I've just selected the the left right mic that's whatever is plugged in on top so you can see there we've got we've got signal from there all I need to do is hit record and if I've got additional microphones plugged in I just need to activate those channels as well. I can provide phantom powers if I'm using a high-quality shotgun condenser microphone or if I'm just plugging in the output of a wireless system like what we're using here today I can plug it in straight in as well. What you're going to get from the H5 to the H6 is simply more additional inputs. So those are all XLR on the sides right? Yes so here with the H6 I've got same thing modular stereo mic inputs but also now for additional as opposed to two additional inputs on the H5. I'm sure that the audio inputs are better the microphones are better everything's better but my favorite thing is that you can read the display now. Yes yes absolutely you can read the display. The reason I recorded in the bathroom was so there was enough light that I could see that display. Yep we heard you loud and clear years ago and especially with the H6 now really meant to be mounted on top of your DSLR now with the screen tilted down so you can see it when it's coming off the back of your camera. Oh very cool I didn't even notice it that's mounted on the DSLR so now I'm looking at the H5 it appears to have a roll bar on the front why is there a roll bar over those dials? Yes the gain knobs stay active while recording so that's a little extra protection in case you accidentally bump the knobs we don't want you to adjust your gain setting that was set specifically for a talker or whatever your audio source was. That absolutely sounds like something I would do. Yeah and you know that's trying to speak to two different communities the broadcast folks don't like that but the live music folks like to be able to fine-tune gain throughout a recording so we're trying to appeal to two different groups of people. So how much is an H5 handy recorder here without say without the mic on top? Sure well it's going to come with the mic that's good news it's going to come with both the XY and the mid-side for $269.99. Are you kidding I just assume I was going to say and this isn't for my audience but that's amazing that's with both of them. Yes and same so with the H6 is $3.99 and again you're getting the two additional inputs there so. That's nuts I thought I was looking at a couple thousand dollar things seriously. No no not not quite. And this records on to an SD card right? Yes both are standard SD cards. Very cool well thank you very much for your time and how would people find out more about Zoom? Zoom-NA.com is our website online and check us out. Thank you very much. Thank you.