The H5’s front panel is ergonomically arranged with its most essential and commonly used controls—transport buttons for record, play/pause, stop, back, and forward operations, individual record-arm buttons that double as mute switches during playback, and large gain knobs. For added safety, a hold switch disables all front-panel buttons to prevent accidental operation during recording. Day or night, view vital information such as audio levels, recording time, battery status, and more on the large, monochrome backlit LCD.