Here are sites of recording equipment and related topics, assembled with the intent of providing information relevant to the study of animal acoustic signals. The range of equipment is great, and the application(s) vary depending on the species and the recording condition(s).

As I've seen on the different list-serves that often discuss this issue, people have strong personal preferences, but the final choice really depends on a balance of your budget, your motives, and your own preferences. The single question shouldn't be: "what is the best recording set-up?", but rather a list of considerations, including: What are the intended and primary uses of the equipment? What species will I be recording? What is the frequency range of the signals to-be recorded? What are special environmental needs and limitations of gaining access to and recording the target species? What kinds of things will I be doing with the recordings? Will students be using this equipment in a teaching context or will it be used exclusively for research purposes, or a combination? What features do I want/need on a recorder? Do other aspects of my equipment influence my choice of recording equipment? As I discuss above with regard to software, first addressing these types of questions will help direct your choices. In addition, I would encourage you to ask whom ever you know who records animals about their experiences with the equipment they use.

The first step is to narrow down your choices for the various components available. The equipment set-up needed to capture sound recordings can be divided into two basic components: The recorder itself and the transducer or microphone. For recording equipment, five basic options are available: Reel-to-reel analog tape recorders (not frequently still used), "standard" cassette recorders (The "micro" cassette recorders are generally too poor in quality to be seriously considered), DAT recorders using DAT tape, mini-disk (MD) recorders, and direct-to-digital methods, either with digital recorders or with direct-to-computer systems. Each of these types of recorders has its own advantages and disadvantages, and I provide several sources (below) for discussions of these characteristics.