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! 
I found my shiny, new PCM-D50 in a box on my doorstep when I came home on Thursday evening. Luckily it was still there. UPS ignored my note to deliver it to the neighbor if no one answered my door. I haven’t had much time to play with it yet, but I have made a few test recordings in my house. It’s been freezing outside the last few days, so the forced air heating is on constantly providing every recording with some nasty background noise. To avoid the noise I made a few recordings in my bathroom. Naturally the first thing I recorded in there was the toilet flushing. Here it is in all its gurgling glory.