There is ~1.3ms delay between what is heard from the headphones and what is actually recorded. That means if you have perfect timing, and play a note at the exact time it is played back, the Zoom R16 will incorrectly place it around 1.3ms in the future on the track you're recording to. When you play the resulting recordings, there will be a 1.3ms gap between what is recorded on track 1 and track 2.

The Zoom R16 is worse than the Fostex MR-8 MkII which has .79ms delay between recorded tracks. Does it matter? For most cases probably not. But if you recorded with a PC you'd have a 0ms delay between tracks because the software automatically compensates for the delay by offsetting the recording on the timeline. Why hardware multitrack recorders don't do this is probably some technical limitation or laziness.

Method

1. New Project
2. Channels 1/2 Stereo link off
3. All 16 tracks off, all faders down, all input levels down
4. Metronome phones only, balance full on click, record only
5. Connect master output headphones to channel 1
6. Phones level maximum, channel 1 input level maximum
7. Channel 1 record mode (red light)
8. Set punch in at 0, punch out at 10 seconds
9. Press record, then play, then stop after 10 seconds
10. Channel 1 input down, metronome balance down
11. Channel 1 fader 100, master fader 100
12. Channel 1 play mode (green light)
13. Metronome off
14. Connect headphone output to channel 2 input
15. Channel 2 record mode (red light), input level maximum
16. Channel 1 and master faders are up, but channel 2 fader must be 0
17. Copy .wavs to PC for analysis

Results

Audio

• Channel 1
• Channel 2