DR-05

Tascam DR-05: Small Recorder with 3.5mm Input for Lavalier Mics

If I were working with a budget of $150 USD to get a decent "wireless" lavalier microphone setup, I would look to the Tascam DR-05 Audio Recorder and JK MicJ 044 lavalier as a solid combination. The nice thing about this combination is that the talent aren't tied to a single spot and can work untethered. Then you just have to sync the audio to the video in post which is not nearly as difficult as we often assume:

Why the Tascam over the Zoom H1?  Feature wise, they are nearly identical. Audio quality wise? Nearly identical. The main thing that would push me to the Tascam is that build quality is just slightly better than the Zoom. The plastic is slightly higher quality. Some say that the preamps are slightly less noisy though I haven't confirmed that 100%. They're certainly in the same league as the H1.

Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio with the Tascam DR-05 which is a nice little addition if you don't already have an audio editing app.