What about a roland VS-2400? At least you can plug in a monitor so you don't have to fiddle with buttons and a tiny ass display.

I'm in the UK and I don't think we can get them here?
Arent they really noisy? It will be in the same room as the stuff I'm recording.
Plus, I am on a tight budget of under £600 and I think the Roland would be over that.
Thanks for the reply though.

Anyone?

hi mate,
thought I would reply as you seem to be on your own here, same as me !
I am in UK too and currently looking to upgrade from my eight track Korg D8 machine.
Like you I have narrowed the search to Yamaha AW1600, Boss BR 1600 and Zoom HD16 which has just come out.

I have read a lot of reviews on the Yamaha and Boss machines and the Yamaha gets rave reviews everytime whereas the Boss one gets mediocre comments. The Zoom one sounds great to but is so new there isnt a lot of info around.

The Yamaha is the more established manfacturer in this area so I am leaning towards this one purely for the quality of the recording, the Zoom one probably has loads of guitar effects like the Boss but I think the end result probably isnt as great. I dont know the ROland one the other dude is referring too but it would be over a grand for sure.

Check out this site and type the details in the search engine and it may be useful. Sorry cant be any help on the technical side.

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Effects/product/Yamaha/AW1600/10/1

I actually tried out a Boss in my local music shop but didn't like it, felt a bit clunky if you know what I mean.
I liked the looks of the Yam more aswell.
For a fact, zooms are very cheaply made, mostly from plastic. I had a few of their guitar pedals to try aswell but they were horrendous. Don't think I will get the zoom.
I don't care about built in guitar effects because it will be recording my guitar by miking amp and effects.
So for build and recording quality I think I am going to get the Yamaha.
Cheers.