Should You Buy The Zoom H5 in 2023?

Good day and welcome to the Time Preservation Society.

I’m Jack Burton.

Today we’re looking at the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder. I bought this recorder myself and am not in anyway affiliated with Zoom.

If you’re into recording audio in any way, you’ve probably heard of Zoom. They’ve been making audio electronics for a while.

The Zoom H5 is a handy recorder. That’s what the H stands for in H5: Handy.

I’m careful not to call it a field recorder (even though it kind of is) because Zoom has the F line that they refer to as field recorders. The F line are much higher-end recorders due to their far better preamps and other features—but I’ll get into that later.

The Zoom H5 is the second in command when it comes to the H line of recorders, second only to the well-known H6, or many third in line after the recently released H8. We mustn’t forget the oddly shaped H8.

The Zoom H5 comes with a detachable set of mics in an XY configuration. It’s called the XYH-5. A completely original name.

These mics can be detached and swapped with a variety of other mics for various uses. I keep mine attached because I don’t want dust and debris getting into the empty cartridge slot.

The recorder is covered in a type of rubberized plastic that feels really good in the hand. I imagine it also minimizes handling noises too. But rubber doesn’t always cooperate for long. More on that later.

It takes two AA batteries but will also run via mini-USB if needed. That’s a great feature. Essentially, one can run this with a power-bank, such as an Anker PowerCore+.

The button, dial, and input/output layout is simple and straightforward.

On the front you’ve got: Trim dials for external mics (protected by a metal bar), track arming, stop, play/pause, skip forward and backward. On the XYH-5 mic cartridge you’ve got a single trim dial that controls both the left and right of the XY capsule together.

On the left side you’ve got a line out for, say, a camera. You’ve also got a headphone out, volume buttons, a MINI USB port, and a hold button that doubles as an on and off button. The hold button freezes all the controls and buttons in case you need to throw it in a bag while it’s recording and don’t want anything to accidentally change any settings you have.

On the right side, you’ve got a remote input to remote control the unit (not included), a toggle wheel for the internal menu system, a menu button, and a slot for your SD card. The maximum size of SD card it’ll take is a meager 32GB.

On the right side of the XYH-5 capsule is a physical eject button and a 3.5mm input for a lav mic or any other mic that’s terminated in a 3.5mm connector.

The bottom of the unit has two XLR inputs that are phantom powered and also double as a balanced 1/4 inch inputs. If, say, you wanted to record direct in from a stereo keyboard, you could do so easily here.

The back of the unit has a mono speaker for quickly reviewing what you’ve recorded without the need for headphones. It also features an all metal 1/4 inch mount so you can mount this on a tripod or other accessories.

It measures 7 1/2 inches long right to the tip of the XY capsule, 2.5 inches wide and 1.5 inches thick.

It takes about 10 seconds to fully boot up to be operational. That’s kind of a long time if you need to get it up and running quickly.

The screen is the old style digital screens á la 1995. It’s got a nice blueish backlight to it, though. So that’s nice. From here you can arm tracks or hit record or play back and all that stuff.

The menu has a project menu and a folder menu — which are pretty straight forward. You name and place your recordings there.

The in/out menu: Inside the the in/out menu, you have your low cuts, compressor/limiters, phantom power on and off, plug-in power, your pad switches, monitor mixers and midside control.

Then you have the record menu which has all the stuff like recording format (wav or mp3) or the bits and kHz like 24bit/48khz.

The H5 will record up to 24 bit /96khz.

The record menu also has auto record setup when you want it to automatically start recording. It also sets up your backup recording, which records a second safety recording that’s -12db quieter, in case you get an unexpected sound that clips your recorder. That’s handy. That’s a handy recorder.

There’s also a play menu for setting up how you want your playback to happen.

It’s got a tool mode that sets up a metronome and a tuner. That’s also handy if you’re a musician.

There’s a system menu for setting up date and time and the length of time your backlight will remain on. It’s also got a display contrast and battery type. You tell it what type of battery you’re using and it optimizes for that battery. The H5 is said to get 10 hours of recording time on non-rechargeable alkaline batteries. I’ve only used rechargeable and I definitely don’t get 10 hours. Maybe 6.

So they recommend the non-rechargeable alkalines.

You can also update your firmware here. I’m running firmware version 2.10 which is the latest as of the date of this review. It came out in June 2020.

Back to the menu. You’ve got your SD card menu which will format your cards and do a performance test on the card you’ve got in there.

The USB menu which just lets the recorder know if you want it to be readable as an external drive or if you want to use it as an audio interface for your computer, tablet, or phone. That’s neat.

And finally a record mode menu. This just selects what’s type of file you want to record to. A multi file (poly wave) or a stereo mix-down file.

And that’s the menu.

To use the H5, after you’ve set up your preferences, you just arm the tracks you want to record to, and hit record. Hit record again to stop.

This unit can record 4 tracks simultaneously which is great, so you can technically record a quasi makeshift ambisonic field with it. Just attach two other mics to the XLR inputs (preferably condensers), switch on phantom power, arm all the tracks, then point the two external mics in one direction, and the two cartridge mics in the opposite direction. Bam. A whole 360 degree field of sound. You can further edit that however you want—even make it immersive in software like Apple’s Logic Pro using their Dolby Atmos Spacial Audio tools.

So let’s summarize with pros and cons:

In the pros column:

• The handy detachable X/Y capsule which is capable of handling up yo a whopping 140 dB SPL. That’s fantastic.

• It’s got Four-track simultaneous recording

• It records up to 24-bit/96 kHz which is all most people really need—unless you intend to pitch down the audio for sound design purposes. In that case, you might need up to 192 khz, depending on what you’re doing.

• I like the -12db backup recording function. That’s very cool.

• Two mic/line inputs with XLR/TRS combo connectors, each with phantom power.

• Built-in digital compression and limiting which are ok.

• It can be used as a Multichannel and stereo USB audio interface for Computer or iPad.

• It can be Powered by batteries or USB

• It’s relatively small and can fit into a medium sized purse or thrown in a bag.

• It’s something that works and is there when you need it.

Here are the cons:

• The preamps aren’t the best. There are worse preamps out there of course, but these are just not ideal for dynamic mics or for quiet nature ambience recording. Theyre fine for louder sources though.

• If you’re capturing dialogue with a cooler output boom mic, it might be a little work cleaning it up in post. But honestly, it’s not that big of a deal.

• the rubberized plastic surrounding the unit is nice at first but they are known far and wide to wear down and become really sticky. Like icky sticky.

• the menu system is clunky and at times makes me feel like I’m on a Tandy TRS80 computer. It’s just slow. But again, not a big deal. I’m just being nit-picky.

• the menu wheel feels a bit cheap. But a lot of the buttons and dials are pretty good though.

You definitely don’t want to drop the thing. But really, you don’t want to drop any recorder anyway.

And that’s that.

You can purchase your very own Zoom H5 for

$310 USD at your favorite store, but use this link if you want to shoot me a few bucks in commission. It costs you nothing more. Appreciated!

ANALYSIS!

The Zoom H5 is a better recorder than the very popular Zoom H4n pro due to added features, and it beats some of the other popular branded recorders in its class. It’s a capable

recorder that can serve you well for many years.

Is it pro level? No. It’s not. There are many other recorders with better preamps and better options out there. All said and done, it comes down to the preamps because that’s the end product: the recordings. The zoom H series aren’t known for their ultra quiet preamps but the H5, H6, and now H8 are the best of the entire H line. The Zoom F series, however, are known to have far better preamps and features.

I just want to say something about my critical analysis of the preamps. I want to make it clear that the H5 will totally do what you want it to do, as long as it’s not super quiet ambiences that you’re trying to capture. It’s not going to ruin or hinder your productions of field recordings in any way. I think it all comes down to the operator and knowing the device. If you know your gear, and you understand audio recording, then this unit will serve you well—for many years.

I’m reminded of an episode of a podcast that I faithfully listen to called Tonebender’s Podcast, where they do a kind-of round table discussion with Hollywood audio pros and talk about how they captured audio or mic choices or sound design and all that fun stuff.

In one episode, a veteran sound recordist Tim Nielsen needed the sound of bears for a movie he was working on for Disney called John Carter. He tracked down a black bear sanctuary that was many states away and spoke to the owner. She didn’t like the idea of strangers in with the bears, so Tim mailed her a Zoom H1 recorder instead. Not the newer H1N. Just the original H1 recorder—with notably worse preamps than the H5. He mailed it to her all set up, and she proceeded to capture 6 hours of bear sounds with this $100 recorder and then mailed it back to him. She had no experience recording anything. He ended up using a lot of those recordings not only in John Carter, but he also used those same recordings in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

And… The original Zoom H1 is rather inferior when compared to the H5.

So, the moral of the story is that it’s not the gear. You can do fantastic things with cheaper gear. You just need some experience either in recording, or in post production or both.

Do I recommend the Zoom H5 in 2023? Yes. If you’re on a budget and need two phantom powered XLR connections plus a built in XY configured mic array, or need something that can record in stereo, or if you know how to clean up some potential noise in post, then it’s perfectly fine. It’ll do everything you want and more.

But if you’re looking for a pro-level sound with buttery nice preamps and converters right out of the gate and will use your own mics and want all the other bells and whistles like Bluetooth connectivity, and have the money, opt for a Zoom F series recorder like the zoom f6 or, even better, a Sound Devices Mixpre.

There might be one or two recorders in the $300 price range that might best the H5 but I don’t know of them. Do you?

So. That’s the Zoom H5 Handy Recorder.

One more thing,

“Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it."

Bye for now.

End Transmission