I got a Zoom H4 for Christmas and I'm staggered by the improvement in sound quality over my Hi-MD recorder for recording our pub sessions. Could be just the mic quality I suppose, but even my £90 Sony stereo mic plugged into my MD can't come near. The Zoom seems to pick out each instrument much more clearly instead of leaving them all in a big muddy mix.   The twin mics are pretty directional, so if I point the thing at a singer on the other side of the table I hardly pick up my harmonica at all! There's mucho trial and error to go. It's a 4-track recorder too but I've yet to play with that feature. The only caveat is the ridiculously-tiny display, though it isn't the major disadvantage that some reviewers would have you think. Also, in recording mode it has a rather menacing glowing red light thsat is somewhat reminiscent of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey." Try to get a deal that includes a free SD card. And a 16MB one is useless! Mine cost £199 with a free 512MB card. At 44.1kHz setting ("CD quality") you can record for over three hours with a 2GB card. You can get much more than that if you downgrade to an mP3 setting. I found a 2GB card for £7.99 in Morrisons the other day, so there really is little need to compromise on recording quality these days. A friend of mine has the Edirol and he loves it and it's a bit smaller, but it is more expensive. The Zoom H2 is even cheaper but I know nowt about that that one!