Hi! Has anyone actually used the relatively new Edirol R1 Portable Digital Recorder? Sounds interesting as an alternative to minidisc technology (which has lots of threads about the pros and cons), but it's harder to find any information from real users.

We're looking for something that's portable and will let us record a song swap with decent enough quality to make out the words and tunes of the songs, and will let us record an individual singer in a quiet spot at high quality (though not CD quality - if we're going to record a CD for someone, they'll have to come to us!).

We'd be expecting to use an external mic most of the time, though I am curious what the tiny built-in mic actually does.

There seems to be more info (or maybe better promos) on the Marantz PMD660, but that's getting a little more pricy and really seems to be more machine than we need.

If anyone's actually used either of them, I'd love to hear your experiences and thoughts.

Thanks!
JudyB