[SprintBob]

I have both a Spire and a Zoom H5. Both are great portable recording devices and after a lesson with my teacher Monday night where I got spanked for not working harder on my left hand articulations, I accepted I need to be recording portions of just about every practice/play session for my own critical analysis for making improvement and correcting mistakes.

I used the Spire with its onboard mic last night and it's just so easy. The practice recordings work for my purpose and sound pretty good but I plugged a pair of KM184's to the Spire this morning for a few runs and it just made me grin (reduction in noise and increase in clarity).

I think the onboard X-Y mic capsule is better on the H5 than the Spire onboard mic but the convenience in post recording processing and handling of a recording with the Spire makes it the choice I'll reach for. It's a brilliant piece of engineering for sure.