I can afford the Edirol R09 but it's too big for me to cart around; I want something I can take out of my pocket at short notice and set up quickly, to capture songs on the fly. For studio quality recordings I already have the kit I need at home. I was going to buy the more expensive H4, but it looks as though the H2 is a better buy anyhow. I realized long ago that price doesn't always mean better quality when I went to buy a Martin guitar and chose a superior guitar at half the price.