James, thanks for sharing! Your post disappeared somehow, but it was a great read.
About the sound blankets, I am curious if the thin flannel-like blankets, similar to what you get on the long flights would be as efficient in controlling the sound reflections and echos. They are not as bulky and much lighter. I suppose that being thin they would not be useful in blocking the sound, but their texture and softness may kill sound reflections. Any thoughts?
Back to the original topic, I received Tascam DR-701D from Beach Camera in timely fashion. My tests with Z7 so far were not successful. On Z7 I enabled HDMI trigger to start/stop the recording and also to record Free running timecode and pass it via HDMI. On Tascam I set the timecode to HDMI. When Z7 is connected, DR-701D displays message that HDMI is connected and Clock linked to HDMI; when Z7 is disconnected, Tascam unit says HDMI is disconnected and clock is linked to Internal. So.. there is some sensing going on, but nothing more than that. The audio recording does not have ANY timecode recorded and starting/stopping video recording on Z7 does nothing to Tascam unit - it does not start or stop the recording. Not good... Z7 is not on the list of the compatible cameras and I asked Tascam to add such support for both Z7 and Z6 which work on Atmos protocol. There was no excitement and no promises, but I do hope they will add this support as these cameras are excellent for video work.
More on Tascam DR-701D. As I *just* received the unit and plugged into port 3 the Deity DXLR to 1/8" adapter. It got stuck. Deadly. I plugged some XLR cables to other ports and they lock. However, they wobble, but they don't get stuck. Called Tascam - their service will replace all XLR ports to those which are compatible with more XLR connectors and should not cause the same issue; they will cover shipping. Nice, ugly, but managed. Called Beach Camera if I could return the unit as Zoom F4 at that time was just $349; they cound not accept the return due to XLR adapter stuck in the XLR port, but issued a $25 refund for inconvenience for me to keep the unit. So that's the story. I'll see if repaired Tascam unit will work as expected eventually, would certainly be useful to utilize timecode and start/stop via HDMI.