Marantz PMD580 Rack-Mount CompactFlash Digital Audio Network Recorder

by Marantz

Product Details

• Item Weight: 13.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 14 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B0017OM6JQ
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,896 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 20, 2007

Product Description

The PMD580 from D&M Pro expands upon the legacy of professional audio recording set by the popular PMD560 and PMD570 solid-state recorders. Ideal for permanent installations, the PMD580 is a 1RU digital recorder that incorporates Ethernet networking to provide a full range of control features. The recorder can record in MP3 or WAV formats at resolutions up to 24-bit/48kHz. Audio files are written onto readily-available CompactFlash memory cards. XLR and RCA connectors are provided for analog I/O, as well as AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital I/O. The PMD580 uses an internal Web GUI and operates as a website, making it easy to fully setup and control the unit from any PC or Mac computer within the network. No extra software is required and recording sessions can be scheduled and downloaded directly to a computer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for many things... but one very limiting flaw., October 10, 2011

By 

Ullanta (Claremont, CA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Marantz PMD580 Rack-Mount CompactFlash Digital Audio Network Recorder (Electronics)

This product delivers on most of its promises, has decent sound, seems simple and reliable to operate. But there is one problem that prevents me from using it as I had intended to... and this may be the case for many potential purchasers.

The Web GUI is nice, and as long as you have a browser window on one computer open continuously during operation, it works fine. But once the PMD starts recording, you can only stop it from the same window in which you started recording. If you navigate away, and then return to the PMD, it shows a login screen, but when you attempt to log in it says "Please stop recorder before logging in". If you want to be able to start and stop recordings over the web - say, via your cel phone or laptop - this is a big problem. You can start ONE recording, then access the machine again only when the card fills and recording stops.
If you have, say, a 32GB CF card in there, that means that if you initiate recording remotely, it'll be at least 32 hours (weeks if recording MP3) before the card fills, recording stops, and you can access the machine remotely again.

You can physically hit the stop button on the machine... but that defies the point of remote access.

You can initiate a scheduled recording, with a predefined stop and end time, but that takes time, and you can't access the machine during that scheduled time. This is currently the best workaround, but takes away a lot of spontaneity, and has a lot more room for error. In my situation, there are a lot of times when end-times of events and rehearsals are undefined; to plan for that, I'd have to set the recording times very long... and in a busy academic hall, THAT would often prevent me from remotely recording the NEXT thing someone wants to record.

I asked the folks at Marantz if there was any chance that they would 1) allow later logins to take precedence and get to the transport window of the GUI or 2) at least have a checkbox on the login screen to say "stop recording and log me in" - but they said nothing like that was in the works.

So, just a warning from someone who tried to investigate every aspect of this machine in advance, and was unable to get enough detail to cover this. You can't use the web GUI from multiple locations to start and stop recording.

This is still the best solution around, and the scheduled recordings work well. I haven't tried the auto downloading to a server, but directly downloading via the web gui (after recording has stopped!) works well.

I wish Marantz would just add a way to stop a recording and access the GUI remotely... until then, I will have to be running in to push the stop button a lot more frequently than I had hoped.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TOP of the line Marantz rackmount LAN capable recorder, December 3, 2010

By 

HMMWV "God, Country, Corps" (santa clara, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Marantz PMD580 Rack-Mount CompactFlash Digital Audio Network Recorder (Electronics)

denon-marantz pro (d-mpro dot com) makes several rackmount digital recorders. The PMD series are more Marantz - the 560 entry level, 570 with extra switching, and this one the 580 with LAN connectivity and a lan server inside, plus a cpu to "do" stuff on its own without people, i.e. setup play schedules, record schedules, use a 1/4 jack to do one of 3 programmable functions, etc. Now on the Denon side there is the 600 series rackmount - they mimic the dmpro 661 to a large degree, use sdhc cards instead of CF cards (no big deal) and have nice OLED displays instead of the backlit LCD display on the Marantz 5xx series. So why did we buy the 580? Well - ITS THE ONLY ONE THAT YOU CAN PLUG INTO YOUR NETWORK! - and eliminating a person to remove the memory card really is a big deal in cost of operation over years of use.

We bought the PMD580 for one main reason and one backup reason. First, it can log telephone calls all day long, then at night it can upload them automatically to our 10 TB network attached storage system Synology DiskStation 5-Bay (Diskless) Scalable Network Attached Storage DS1010+ (Black) which it does all by iteself every night over the internal network, then erases the files from the internal CF drive. If it gets a fire contact closure on the 1/4" jack on the back from our alarm system it will play a pre-recorded evacuate calmly message over the UPSed PA system (it's upsed along with our raid5 disk system) So it does double duty.

Here are the hot and not so hot spots about the PMD-580

1 - LAN interface. W/ LAN server built in. Full remote control via LAN or rs-232c or 1/4" contact closure - your choice
2 - differential audio (XLR) or single ended (RCA) inputs - or digital XLR/RCA inputs - professional grade stuff
3 - be careful - no 48V phantom power and no support for microphone level inputs - you'll need at least a mic amp to feed a mic into this. Ours lets us customize the phone line.
4 - High level of automation. Ours has record schedules and nighttime LAN upload schedules to the disk server over our network. After its done and the day's files are safe on the raid5 server, the CF card copy is erased, and it's ready for the next day - all by itself without anyone's intervention. READ - NO HUMAN INVOLVED, email of errors go to several people should there be a failure and calls are kept on the 32GB CF card.
5 - quiet - no fans - very high signal/noise level on the recordings.
6 - easy setup - network setup or front panel setup. I'd prefer more knobs on the front - i.e. to adjust the gain, you must use rs-232
7 - XLR in, RCA in, XLR out, RCA out, digital in (XLR or RCA) and digital out (xlr or rca)
8 - RS-232 interface, and that ONLY LAN interface in a rackmount recorder. If you do the work, you dont need it. If you want the machine to do the work, its automatic.

Ample connectivity gives you remote control from servers and builtin automation.

This is Denon-Marant'z flagship recorder. It is shipping in Dec 2010 in 2 versions - the factory new version, and the seven hundred ninety nine buck refurbished versions - for that low pricepoint, it represents a very valueable and usefull tool, but you may have to buy it from a music store (I shop at both amazon and music stores for my recording hardware, cables, microphones, etc - sometimes amazon's buying power is great, other times the music stores like guitar center and northern light and sound will beat prices by 30-40%)

If you need a recorder that is automated and can handle everything on its own and can be used remotely on the internet w/ password and login, the PMD-580 either refubed or new is your ONLY choice out there. Be careful of the $199 rackmount sdhc units selling today - we thought what a bargain but you get what you pay for in those! While other marantz systems can be controlled remotely via parallel i/o inputs (switches) or rs-232, only the PMD-580 can be used over the network, which combined with the built in network server is a great product. Because I have mic level inputs, and it does not accept that low of a signal, I am using it with the shark from behringer to shift up the audio level. Behringer Shark DSP110 Digital 24-Bit Multi-Function Signal Processor The shark is an amazing audio processor - -20 or +4 dbu ins/outs XLR or TRS ins / outs, and 48vdc quiet phantom power for mics, along with live audio feedback killers, digital delay for house speaker sets, filters, companders - its a bargain here on amazon where I've bought 2 units.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, reliable, and simple to use!, June 8, 2011

By 

D. Hughes (fort worth, tx) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Marantz PMD580 Rack-Mount CompactFlash Digital Audio Network Recorder (Electronics)

I purchased this recorder last year for a church sanctuary. It was easy to set up and once settings are in place, recording is as easy as pushing one button. The network features are great, especially the web interface controls, which are so much easier than trying to adjust settings only viewing the little screen on the recorder. With a wireless network, I can control the recorder from a laptop anywhere in the church. Downloading the audio files to my laptop wirelessly is also a plus! Haven't used the auto-archive functions yet, but may do so soon. Audio quality options are numerous. I'd definitely recommend this recorder for any permanent install situation.