Olympus WS-700M Digital Voice Recorder 140152 (Grey)
by Olympus
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Category: CE
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: OlympusModel: 140152
Color: Grey
Product features:
- 4 GB Internal Memory
- Removable MicroSD Card Capability
- USB Direct Connect
- Battery Charge Function
- PCM/MP3/WMA Recording
- Over 1,000 Hours Recording Time; Large backlit LCD screen; Voice Activation; Scene Select
- 4GB internal memory and micro SD card slot
- Direct link to your Mac/PC with the USB direct design
- MP3, WMA and PCM recording formats
- USB 2.0 High Speed; Microphone Jack; Earphone Jack
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Olympus WS-700M Digital Voice Recorder 140152 (Grey)
Customer Review: audio-recording quality - recording Music, Instruments, Vocals, etc.
Summary: 4 Stars
This review intends to add to 'A Conrad's review ("A very nice personal voice recorder", placed at the "Blue" version of the unit) .. with focus around "audio recording quality", when using the unit(ws700m) for recording music, vocals, etc (that is: can ws700 do the job, as more than a diktafon?).
Summary: The unit has got very good and usable audio recording quality, which is okay for vocals and Music recordings. Of course it is beaten by samplers and more audiophile units (with manual rec-level control, etc.), but is does the job very well for the less "professional" home-user. Only problem is the noise of the amplifying-circuitry, which is a tad annoying at middle & and gtows quite high, at high mic-sense setting.
Before buying ...
The details such as sound quality when recording, was essential to me.
I aim to use this unit widely - from notes to recording my kids singing and playing music - classroom-recording is also needed.
Being a parent, to a 3 y.o. boy and girl, full of toddler-energy - and since I want to use such a unit to record what they come up with - regarding music, singing, etc. - besides recording "the normal stuff", such as lectures.
And I knew that the +50-100 USD models would feature real music recording abilities - such as manual control over rec-levels (opposed to the 'voice recorders' automatic gain-level control), good configurable filters, higher sampling-rates, etc. ... but, the price of these would result in my 3 y.o. kids being alienated form the expensive unit, as it would be one of the "grown-up can-be-ruined" electrical 'mystery-units', that does the job.
So, how did all this apply to this unit...
After buying :
It really does the job. The audio-recordings is "very airy, open, quite neutral" - using the built-in microphones.
I tried it with mp3-256k and pcm-44k (uncompressed) - and both turned out better than expected, for a diktafon ...
One problem is, although, the noise ... which seems to be noise of the amplifying-circuitry ... it can be a problem (in middle and especially high mic-sense) ...
It seems to be more of an "audio-recorder / sampler" than a simple voice-recorder.
I have tried making noise-reduction in Audition, which also cae out with a better result than expected (from an mp3-256k recording) - the audio is again quite good, still wibrant and open (airy.., with no audible artifacts).
I have yet to try pluggin-in external mic's - but I'm not sure I will need this .. since it does quite well "on its own"..
And, so small ... my old primitive only-voice "recorder" from 2003 used to be small, but now it is bulky and very last century / old-looking.
I don't know if there is any other unit in this price-league, that does the job as well as this unit (maybe Panasonic has a winner, too?), but I need not seek elsewhere - I am grounded with this unit.
The speaker: It is better than "the bad reviews of it has stated" - it "sounds thin", but in close up recordings with signal of -3 to -6 dB sound level (which was the level the unit adjusts to (agc-level)), the speaker could be heard well (maybe not in an noisy environment).
I have not tried experimenting with the lower-quality recording settings, since it is not my intended use, and since I will transfer the files to PC, and then edit (remove noise, etc.), and then save at a compression level which suits the purpose (using for instance "dB Power Amp" music converter (which is free, in the old versions, and offers a good and adjustable quality output in the mp3-format)).
Afterthoughts:
As it shines through, I am vere pleased with the recordings - which is what I was aiming at, and have focused on, in this review.
The rest seemes to be well covered in other reviews - that is stuff such as "portability" and menus (for instance "ease of use").
I will however shortly line-up, that I found the construction of my sample, to be firm and tight, including the buttons ... And, that it initially starts in recording mode, from which a recording is just "one press away" (with the 'rec-button'), and pressing the rec-button toggles the recording (...pause-play-pause... etc.).
The menus is operated like on a modern digital-camera (such as Panasonic, Canon and Sanyo) - which is good/bad? .. I am used to them, so I quickly got used to navigating the unit.
-------
Notes on the Sony PX820 (which seemed to be a good and less expensive alternative) :
I have heard some recordings with the Sony PX820 (an alternative to the WS-series) at YouTube, made with and without external mike/mikes - and, the recordings seemed to lack treble. Bass and midrange dominated - and I have concluded that the Sony has circuitry inside ('noise cancellation'?), resulting in a narrow 'voice-oriented' frequency-range (making it very unusable when it comes to full-range music/audio-recording).
Another important comparison: Rec-level dynamics: From reading and hearing the reviews of the Sony PX820 it seems that it is one of the models, that doesn't control the mic-sensitivity very well - resulting in distortion when speaking up close, and too little gain-up when the unit is far away from the speaker.
Description of Olympus WS-700M Digital Voice Recorder 140152 (Grey)
Olympus WS-700M GRY Recorder.Digital Cameras & Photo Categories
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