That sounds “wrong” 
The H2 (and H2n) is designed to pick up from the front or back or both, depending on the microphone selection. It is not designed to pick up from the end.
The H2 has a screw thread on the bottom for stand mounting. It does not provide a mounting fixture for side mounting, as it’s not designed to be used that way.
The H4 / H4n is designed to pick up from the end, and has a screw thread on the back for stand / camera mounting.
LOL. It’s just a mistake by whoever did the artwork for the ad.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C7V8DHQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The mount has the attachment where it should be. The recorder will sit up straight.
Speak into the side with the company name.
Well, my used h2 order got canceled. No longer available.
Was that from a person or a company? Companies generally don’t play games like that on risk of a bad rating.
If this works out (and I expect it will) you will become the poster child for not using the computer to record an audiobook.
Koz
Well, my used h2 order got canceled. No longer available.
They have a trick about that. You’ll find a recorder at a suspiciously low price and only after you start bidding you discover there is a “Protection Bid” in the background repeatedly cranking up the bid until it reaches the expected list price.
That puts you in mental Stop Loss Trap territory. You’ve gone this far and it’s no worse than the other prices, might as well keep going.
Koz
It wasn’t eBay. It was Amazon. A one-of-a-kind used item. I suspect they had it for sale at more than one place. It’s okay. The one I’m getting is brand new and the camera mount will be useful.
Why should I be a poster child? Is this some kind of new concept?
I dusted off a 10" laptop I’d given up on as being too slow and with too small a screen to be useful for recording. I listened to it. No noise. I will run tests and prove for myself which method will produce better recording. A Snowball with a silent laptop, or a Zoom h2n with no machine in the room at all.
What I want to be a poster child for is producing an audio book people will actually listen to. During my lifetime.
The dream of every audiobook producer.
We are happy to try and help.
We do have a pretty good track record of helping people to get their audibooks published, Sadly we are not able to guarantee “fame and fortune”, but we can, and do wish you luck.
I think what Koz means is, that if you succeed in getting published with recordings made on an H2n, then we can say to other audiobook creators that are having a tough time recording on their computer: “Look here, it is possible to create audiobooks on an H2n”.
Koz
Have you just started recommending it? Don’t mind being a guinea pig. Whatever works that I can afford.
Don’t mind being a guinea pig.
“Guinea pig” sounds like we’re asking you to try something to find out if it works or not. We know this works.
You’re the positive model of a successful technique.
“Look at Keress. She’s a published author using an H2n in a quiet room.”
Have you just started recommending it?
I’ve been doing it without talking about it very much. The H4 was part of a job where the producer recorded family history while the family was still alive. Nobody wanted to drag a noisy computer, power connections and heavy cables into Mum’s sitting room.
Recording on the computer is getting harder and harder. The choices are to buy a USB microphone and spend the next several weeks forcing it to work, or take delivery of a stand-alone recorder, crawl into a closet with a quilt and start recording your book.
You may not even need the separate recorder if I can find out why the iPhone recording failed.
Koz
I usually use the joke about publishing, making a fortune and retiring to a nice villa on the Mediterranean, but in your case, I think a nice beach-front cottage in Kill Devil Hills.
Koz
The iPhone wasn’t me. I’ve been recording with a snowball in the closet with a 17" laptop that was noisier than I realized. It’s a lot quieter than my desktop, but still not enough.
My H2n is here. Looks nice. Any quick suggestions on what mic gain I should start with? I’m assuming the ‘front’ of the mic is the side opposite the display. If I crank it all the way up to 10 and speak normally I’m getting a peak at -6 db. Does that sound right?
Yes, talk into the side with the display. Occasional peaks at -6dB to -10dB are just about right.
You should be able to plug your headphones into the socket on the side and hear yourself in real time. That’s another advantage of not being connected to the computer. That will help you keep an even volume while you speak.
Make sure you know the drill about how to get the work out of the H2n and into your computer, that you have the right cables, etc. When my H4 wakes up with a cable plugged in, it asks me if I want to use the microphones or the storage. It’s two completely different connections with the same wire.
Announce one of those forum tests, transfer it over to the computer and push it up to the forum.
Some newer recorders allow you to save the work as MP3 or WAV. Use WAV, 16-bit, 44100. MP3 is hard to edit without sound damage.
There is one question I don’t know. The microphones inside the H2n are not always stereo Left and Right. Sometimes, they’re Mid-Side and I don’t know the best way to get from that to a single blue wave mono show. Which selection on the top does your machine come with?
Where’s Steve?
I need to be in and out.
Koz
Do the test as X-Y. Then, when the test arrives in Stereo (two blue waves) Tracks > Mix > Mix Stereo Down to Mono. That should give you a single blue wave with a mix of the best features of the microphones.
Koz
The iPhone wasn’t me.
No, that was me. It’s the obvious test, right? If you have an iPhone, you don’t need anything else but the quiet room and a computer to edit on later.
It didn’t work. Transferring the work to the computer was stupid hard to do and it sounded bad. I gotta be doing it wrong. So it’s in my to-do pile.
Koz
Found it. This is from the Washington Post.
…the engine behind many of these small businesses: Fulfillment By Amazon, or FBA.
Through FBA, people can add their own products to Amazon’s vast online catalogue for varying fees.
So this is Amazon’s eBay.
Koz
Okay, poster child here, back again. I got through the zoom manual, shut myself up in my closet, the one with egg crate foam hanging from the ceiling, and recorded a sample. Also just recorded some room noise.
That went OK. There’s still a tiny bit of motor noise in there. I wonder if it’s coming up through the floor. Anyway, It easy to suppress now.
There’s two versions for you to listen to. The first one is plain mastering and very gentle noise reduction.
The second one is a little magic. I made a filter called DeCrisper1. It takes a little of the harshness and lip smacks out in addition to the other tools.
See which you like. Listen for overly crisp SS sounds and your two lip smacks just after 17 seconds. DeCrisper1 should reduce them enough so you won’t have to mess with special filters or effects, or worse, patch them by hand. Only the second clip has DeCrisper added.
I do have a complaint. Yes you recorded nice pure room tone, but you were also supposed to record it at the front of the sound clip. ACX Check analysis tools try to measure noise in the performance, not as a separate file. So before I did anything else, I took out the noise you made just before speaking and put two seconds of clean room tone in there from the noise track.
See which version you like.
Koz
Sorry, I thought I had enough room noise before the recording. I want to try one more thing. I want to find another light I can put in there and turn off the fluorescent overhead. I don’t hear anything from it, but what do my ears know? At night lying in bed, I can’t hear crickets in my left ear. The crickets outside the open window, not crickets in my left ear.
To be honest, I don’t hear much difference in either of the variations. The only thing that irritates me is that I sound like I’m getting over a cold, which I am. My days of hearing nuanced differences in audio tracks may be over, if I ever had any. I still sound like I’m engaged with what I’m reading, not bored yet. Those are the kinds of things I can hear. The theatrical side of it.