Previous mention of the Olympus DS-30 pocket dictation machine piqued
my interest, so I took a quick look.
I can't recommend the DS-30 as a primary recorder, or even as a "point
and shoot" recorder for casual recording. The recorder's preamp is a
bit too noisy for these duties.
However, this $100 machine is great for note-taking in the field. All
files have date and time stamp so you can match them up with your
activities. The DS-30 works OK for capturing nature sound "notes,"
too. My impromptu recording of quail with chicks on my patio was clear.
The DS-30's internal speaker has 250 mW of power at full volume,
enough to share a recording with a friend. When I captured the songs
of my resident mockingbird and played them back, he flew over in a hurry.
The DS-30 does double duty as a personal music player. The machine
can play files in MP3 and WMA formats. Unlike most voice recorders,
the DS-30 can record stereo WMA files, too.
The advantage of using WMA format is twofold. First, WMA files sound
good despite being strongly compressed. Second, WMA files can be
converted easily to WAV format for use by audio editors. Most pocket
note-taking machines use proprietary recording formats that need
special software to edit.
The DS-30 is designed to work with music libraries created using
iTunes and Windows Media Player. If you have imported your bird song
recordings into either program, you can easily transfer the songs to
the DS-30. The DS-30's file structure has 128 folders for music
files, and each folder can hold 200 files. During playback, the DS-30
displays the long file name, artist and album information.
The DS-30 is very small and so light you can barely feel it in your
pocket. Yet it has a useful range of recording and playback features.
One of my favorites is recording using a timer. If you want to sample
nighttime sounds, just set the start and stop times. The recorder
will wake up on schedule, and you can stay in bed.
If anyone is interested in learning more about the Olympus DS-30, send
me email and I'll share my notes.
--oryoki
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