I captured this very typical example of restaurant ambiance recently at my favorite neighborhood Thai place in Minneapolis. I’m still running the PCM-D50 through its paces, but I sense that I’ll be looking forward to a long and happy relationship. This one minute and seven second clip includes many of the usual sounds sounds of diners in a food establishment: talking, laughing, coughing, children, plates clinking, ice in drinks, footsteps of the servers, and take away being placed in paper bags.
Restaurant Ambiance
One of the first few recordings I made with my Sony PCM-D50 was to capture traffic ambiance. This was really a pretty good test for the stereo imaging of the built in mics. I held the device, so there is some handling noise, although I did put a wind screen on the D50. This recording would have been impossible without it. The mics on the D50 are very sensitive to wind. Even indoors if an object, like a door, moves the air near the unprotected mics you will hear the capsules flapping in the breeze. Despite the wind screen you can hear a bit of wind noise around 00:34. The stereo image is acceptable, but it’s not as broad as other stereo mics I’ve used such as the Shure VP88. I have yet to try the 120 degree, Y pattern setting, which I imagine will spread the image considerably.
This is not a website about my cat. First of all, the cats are not mine. I just live with them. Secondly, I can get away with this because I’m posting an animal sound. Anyway, before I get myself in trouble by saying something regrettable about cats, my wife’s cat Minuit (French for midnight) has a really great purr. I managed to capture a little bit of it along with some cat swallows and a partial meow the other night when I first got my Sony PCM-D50. The photograph is not Minuit, but actually his chief rival, Caro, the newest edition to the family who embodies pure evil. Just look at those eyes! 
This afternoon I stumbled upon another one of my recent FM synthesis experiments from November 2, 2008. On that day I recorded eight minutes of output from select randomized programs that I produced using a MaxMSP patch called X.FM. You can hear all of the examples I have posted so far by clicking on the 
After several weeks of research I have finally made a decision and purchased a