Olympus WS 520M Handheld Recorder

So I needed a portable sound recording device to hook up to a shotgun mic on a boom. This thing is perfect! pros: The sound quailty of recorded material is great. If you're outside or need something like an aircondition with a "humm" you can adjust the amount of "noise" not picked up by the recorder from none to low to high (GREAT FEAUTURE for a filmmaker). The next issue was a huge plus and I was worried before I bought it, but I'm soo glad this recorder does it - while recording the sound CAN be heard through the headphones. It records in WMA or MP3 which I guess is good, but at 8gigs using WMA (a better sound quailty) you still get more than 12 hours of footage. That's way more than I need. It's easy to use and takes about five minutes to understand fully. Con: The only flaw I really see with it is that you CANNOT change the file name of an item within the unit itself, it can only be changed once it is loaded to the computer.

At last a piece of electronic equipment that does not have any pieces to lose. A built in USB...No cord to lose! Comes with a USB rechargable battery, but will use any AAA. I've used this for recording church services, pipe organ hymn sings and find it records and replays as if it were live. I have been able to store data files on it, as with any thumb drive, I was frustrated with the directions and set it aside for a week. I picked it up without the directions and learned how to use it in less than 15 minutes. For the price you get a great quality stereo recorder, a dictation recorder, an 8 gig thumb drive, a date and time piece, an mp3 player for the car. I don't know what's in the pipeline, but this is just flat out a great piece of equipment. The recorder is tough and durable, and it even comes with a case if you really want to protect it. Last but not least, it comes with a USB cable that you can lose, just so you'll feel great when you can still use the recorder after it's gone.

I bought this about a month ago and its nice for just doing some recordings without being near a PC or something else. I've used it quite a bit for just messing around and trying to get songs right on the acoustic guitar and singing and it works great for that. A nice feature is that it has a built in speaker so right after you record something you can play it back, I also bring it in my car and listen to the recordings out of the headphone jack. I don't see any quality issues with it and for the price its a good buy.

The Olympus WS-520 is great for recording a conversation or a conference - it picks up guitar and vocals, but the quality is just not there. It has a "music" mode and a "voice" mode, but you can't record in music mode - surprise! I was not thrilled with the fact that I had to read directions to get it to work. The rechargeable battery takes a really long time to charge via USB. This would be excellent for doing interviews - the file management is not bad, and it does pick up spoken voices pretty well.