The Song Fight Bulletin Board

The quality is probably not up to your standards, but I have an Archos Jukebox Recorder from the pre-i-Pod days. It's still my MP3 player of choice (especially in the winter when I always have some big pockets for it in my big coat). Looking at the Archos site now, it looks like they've gone all video-camera and mini-MP3-player, so maybe it's not the best bet.

But still, my little machine is a workhorse, and records to MP3 from an external mic (it actually has a built-in mic, but the drive makes so much noise, it's worthless). It encoded our first bunch of SongFight! entries from our 4-track. Again, hardly a professional-grade quality, but it's cheap and it's good.[/url]

So I got one of these (Zoom PS04) and have not had a chance to use it intensively, but did find it great for working with the BackPacker while travelling and using its on-board electret mic to catch vocal ideas for my FAWM and Niveous album. Worked well with little complexity and there is a free PC/MAC software that helps manage the files you get out. Plus has effects, multi-tracks/bounces/has drum machine and programmable bass line.

Also would love to get my hands on this(M-Audio Microtrack 24/96)....yummy...oh well awaiting commission or extreme gifts

I was also going to mention the M-Audio Microtrack 24/96. We're planning on ordering a bunch of those for work. It's got two separate stereo tracks, so you can make a stereo recording and then make another stereo recording for talking overtop of the other without ruining it (at work, we're thinking of using it as a tool for giving feedback on student performances). Then, you can upload the data to your computer and do whatever from there. They're like $499 from American Musical Supply.