Olypmus Digital Recorders (and now Sony)

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:50 am

I won a Best Buy gift card at work the other day, and I'm thinking of taking the plunge and moving up from my old sony cassette recorder to a digital recorder.

Now before everyone jumps up and recommends the $400 level recorders, I'm flat out not willing to spend that much cash. In fact, my major debate is between shelling out $30 of my own cash or $55 to supplement my $50 gift card.

I'm trying to decide between two Olympus models (they've received pretty good press on this board when I searched for digital recorder information) - the WS-110 and the WS-311M.

I truly don't care about playing MP3s on the recorder, so the 311 isn't better for that reason.

Looking at Olympus' site, here are links to the specs:

WS-110 http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_secti ... =1321&fl=4

WS-311M http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_secti ... =1308&fl=4

It looks to me that the sampling frequency (44.1kHz) is the same for both models on the highest setting, both allow for slow down of a recording without changing pitch (that would be cool), both seem to capture the similar frequencies (the 311 does goes a bit higher), and both record in WMA (not a big deal to me).

I'm not sure I truly need the extra internal memory since I'll save these to CD or my MP3 playing phone if the memory fills up (and an extra 256MB isn't much memory anyway), and I'm not sure recording in stereo will make much of a difference if the sample rate is the same.

All that said, I'd like to hear what you all think about these two choices - should I shell out the extra bucks or will I get good recordings with the cheaper model?

Thanks,

Eric

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:22 am

Only you can determine what features are most important to you, what trade-offs you are willing to accept, and exactly what sort of usage you plan for this unit. If you are only recording for the purposes of picking up tunes at a session or from your teacher, then mono recording is fine, and even then, you may be surprised how often you will want that extra bit of memory. If you want to save performances to save and burn to disk, you will want stereo recording at 44.1 (CD rate).

You also want to make sure that you have a way to easily transfer the files from your recorder to your PC, and that you can save the files in a non-proprietary format that you can use and manipulate later.

djm

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:29 am

I bought an Olympus (it wasn't a 110, but it was the equivilent model at the
time) and took it back because the sound quality was terrible. It was definitely
only intended to be a voice recorder. I traded it in for the same model, but with
the music player feature, and it was much better. I think they used the same
codec in the models like the 310M for both recording and playback of music,
and that's why it's better for recording music. YMMV.

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 8:58 am

This is what I have been using:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/sto ... 20recorder

I haven't been all that unhappy with the sound (would like better, though), but looking at the specs I see the frequency range is 250-6300Hz whereas both Olympus recoders are more like 50-13,000Hz (higher for the 311).

I'm not a technical kind of guy...what does the larger frequency range mean to me? I'm assuming either would be a step up from what I have now...am I right?

Being a cassette recorder, it doesn't give a sample rate - would that be higher with a tape or a digital recorder? Also, what does that mean to me?

I was tempted to drive out to a Best Buy (but with gas so high and best buy a good 30 miles away...), break out the flute, and try recording on both, but I'm not sure they'd like me to do that. So, I'll likely order online.

What I really don't want is something that sounds the same as my current tape player...I want it to sound better...otherwise I wouldn't want to waste the money.

I do appreciate the advice so far, but don't assume I know much about any of this stuff so any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

Eric

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:18 am

My Olympus had two choices for recording but, unfortunately the best quality eats batteries like there's no tomorrow.

I was disappointed with it. I don't recall offhand what model. I got it last year for Kentucky Music week.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:28 am

Jayhawk wrote:I'm not a technical kind of guy...what does the larger frequency range mean to me? I'm assuming either would be a step up from what I have now...am I right?

If you record sounds that go lower or higher than your tape recorder can
record, then they will be lost. The digital recorders will record pretty much
all frequencies which can be picked up by the human ear.

Being a cassette recorder, it doesn't give a sample rate - would that be higher with a tape or a digital recorder? Also, what does that mean to me?

Analog technology like tape recorders don't need a sampling rate. That's a
purely digital thing.

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 9:42 am

fearfaoin - my guru of techie issues....
If a sample rate if purely digital, my next question would be would a 2 track cassette recorder (my Sony) normally produce a better quality recording than a 44.1kHz digital recording? I'm guessing not since the frequency range is smaller, but I honestly don't know.

Flyingcursor - with a 9 year old boy and tons of electronic toys, I'd be living under an overpass were it not for rechargable AA and AAA batteries...so short battery life isn't an issue for me, but I know it would be an issue otherwise. How did the recordings sound on your Olympus (if you can recall)?

Thanks,

Eric

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:45 am

Jayhawk wrote:fearfaoin - my guru of techie issues....
If a sample rate if purely digital, my next question would be would a 2 track cassette recorder (my Sony) normally produce a better quality recording than a 44.1kHz digital recording? I'm guessing not since the frequency range is smaller, but I honestly don't know.

You hit the nail right on the head. With digital recording, you sacrifice a bit
because of having to sample the original sound at discrete time periods, and
with analog magnetic tape, you sacrifice frequency range. But for most
people, using a 44.1kHz sampling rate (which is used for CDs) is considered
really good sound. But most digital recorders also use some compression
technique like MP3 or WMA to save memory, which throws out some of the
information (hopefully, only the stuff that your ear doesn't notice). So, it will
depend on the compression settings on your digital recorder, but at its
highest quality setting, a digital recorder will probably sound better than an
analog tape recorder.

Also, with magnetic tape, you have some degredation of the recording
over time as the magnetized particles in the tape lose their alignment.

fyffer · Post by **fyffer** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:56 am

I have the Olympus WS-310M, and it's been nothing but glorious.
It makes almost cd-quality stereo recording, and is extremely easy to use, both as a recording device, and playback. Also, though you don't want or need it, the MP3 playing ability is nice -- you can rip cd's from your computer, and copy the tunes to your recorder to carry around with you-- you don't need a separate mp3 player for your tunes.

The only thing I don't like about it is that the controls are very low-profile. Most times, I have to use my fingernail to push the play/record/ menu buttons, and it's kinda hard to do in a dark session. Also, if you can swing it, get an exterior microphone: with the onboard mic, you get a lot of machine handling noise, and if you put the recorder on a table to record, you'll pick up all the foot-stomping, glass-clinking vibrations.

Still, all that said, if I had to buy it again, I would.

I don't know what the diff is between the 310 and 311 though.
I got my machine from Amazon.com, and it ran me just over USD100.

Good luck.

BillChin · Post by **BillChin** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:09 pm

Chiff member Michael Eskin wrote a review on Olympus recorders in 2006:

http://www.uptospeed.net/hoi/digitalrecorders.html

Before that Eskin recommended a Sony model and I found it to be terrific. For field recording, most of the time, room acoustics and background noise will be the limiting factors, not the sampling rate.

My five year old Sony voice recorder is now stone age tech, with a tiny 8mb of memory. However, even with a low sampling rate and limited capacity, I don't need to replace it. I describe the sound quality of my Sony with a mic, equivalent to FM radio. For field recording that is plenty.

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 12:10 pm

Well, when words like "glorious" are tossed around, it seems like the choice is clear...I think I'll pony up the extra $30 and get the WS-311M.

And you're probably right djm - the extra memory may come in handy.

I can't comprehend why these don't come with SD card slots, though...heck my cell phone has one.

Eric

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 1:58 pm

Bill - now you've tossed another chicken in the pot and I've found this:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 0702542972

It's also stereo, same sample rate, better slow down capability...now I'm unsure again.

Maybe the Sony would be better with the larger storage and direct to MP3 recording.

Eric

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:06 pm

Wow, a Gig of memory. Nice. I agree that it's silly that these don't have memory card ports.

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:19 pm

I think it's the Sony for me...I can get it in bright red so it's harder to forget and leave behind. In addition, I'm sure it's returnable if it doesn't work well. One of the few knocks I saw in reviews of the Sony was that the built in speaker isn't good, but I have Sony power-amped walkman speakers I could plug it into for practicing at home and I always listen to tunes with earbuds on the bus to and from work (that's when I aurally learn my tunes). Another negative complaint was that you have to set the recorder down because the mic's were so sentive they picked up hand noies, etc...but since I planned to set it down when recording that seems like a non-issue.

Going direct to MP3 seems like it will make moving files around much easier.

That said, I won't be home to order until after my son's choir concert tonight...so there are several hours for other folks to chime in.

Eric

CHasR · Post by **CHasR** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 6:16 pm

what I want to know, olympus owners;

is how easy is it to transfer an Mp3 file from the device to a pc for waveform editing??

Are we talkin USB here, or do I need some fancyschmancy new plug-in hardware card with a "by-jingo-its-fast-hot-diggitydog" wire?