Olympus DM-10 DIGTL VOICE RECORDE ( 141592 )

Rating:
Summary: Fragile equipment
Review: On May 29, 2004 I ordered the digital recorder, based upon the glowing reviews that I've read about the sound quality. I'm a barbershopper and wanted to have high fidelity digital recordings for the chorus web site and for learning tapes. The device is tiny, sleek and shiny like an elongated lighter. It sounded sensational with the little ear buds, but came with no protective case. On 07/09/04 it stopped working entirely. The display did not light up, yet the batteries were new (2 days old)and the battery display showed that it was fully charged the day before. I was heading out for a rehearsal, and had it on my wrist by the strap. My guess is that it must have bumped into the car door as I slid into the driver's seat. When I took it off my wrist to put on the seat belt, that's when I discovered that the display was dead. I opened the battery slide and the little coil that pushes against the battery sprung out. Without that in place the recorder cannot work. Because the failure happened more than a month after purchase, Home Depot would not cover it. Olympus is having me send it back. We'll see what happens. It's a nice device, with great fidelity, but it's incredibly fragile. I'd hesitate before recommending it.

Rating:
Summary: Thank you Olympus!!
Review: Thank you Olympus for making a voice recorder that actually WORKS for lecture recording! This compact and rugged unit has excellent sound quality and a more-than-adequate recording time of 4 hrs. and 25 min. (in high-quality mode). It will connect to your PC via a cool little USB cradle adapter (included) or a direct USB cable connection. The software is also very easy to use. The only minor problem I had was with the Windows Media Player 9 install menu on the software CD. Apparently someone forgot to put a link to the setup program from the main install menu because when you click the button, nothing happens. The media player is optional anyway and chances are, you already have it installed on your PC. That is my only reason for not giving it a full 5 star rating. This is currently the best "bang-for-your-buck" DVR available...

Rating:
Summary: The best DVR for the money
Review: The Olympus DM-10 is incredible. It is unlike anything you have ever used before. The sound at HQ & Stereo HQ recording mode is outstanding. During a lecture, you can sit in the back and record, and what you play back is 100% understandable. Even the SP and LP modes will record clearly, but you probably won't use it, because SHQ and HQ will spoil you. As an MP3 music player, I think it sounds better than a portable CD player. My DM-10 came with stereo earphones (earbuds) and a stereo condenser mike (ME51S). I was reluctant to buy it at first, because of the $150 price tag. But once I got it and started using it, there was no doubt as to why.

Rating:
Summary: I like it
Review: This is a really cool product. So much nicer than tape recorders. I really like how you can upload your recording to your computer. That is a major plus! The unit is easy to operate. It came with a stero mic, but that mic is not as good as the $59.99 stereo accesory mic you can order directly from Olympus. I have compared the two. Hey, you get what you pay for. Some people complain about the speaker quality and I don't know why, cuz it sounds good to me. The 'wow' feaure doesn't wow me that much though. I like the low setting, but the med and high setting is awful for music/mp3. I can't get over how SMALL this thing is. Much tinier than it looks in pictures. I mean, this thing is almost too small. It's like a big cigarette lighter. At first I didn't like the size, thought it was too small, but now I'm getting use to it and sorta like it this size. This unit is a little pricy, but if you can splurge, I think you'll be happy you did. It is perfect for musicians to capture spontaneous melodies that come into their head.

Rating:
Summary: Exceeded my expectations
Review: This is the only electronic device that has ever exceeded my expectations. I am very satisfied with the DM-10. I use the DM-10 for recording lectures and it works wonderfully at close range while in the highest (stereo @ 44KHz, 2hrs 12min recording time) quality setting. The high quality mono version (4hrs 25min) works great too. I have not used the lower recording settings, I bought it for the high quality recording ability so I don't think I ever will use the lower settings. Software setup was easy, though I had to point windows(98se) to the cd in order to load the device driver. My one qualm with the DM-10 was the price to storage space. Flash memory is so cheap these days that there is no reason that the DM-10 cannot have 128MB storage and the DM-20 have 256MB for the same current prices, but I am very happy with my purchase as it is. You get what you pay for and you do pay a price for the DM-10 but it is very worth it for the quality and ease of use.

Rating:
Summary: Very Nice
Review: Works very well for lectures. I bought an external mic at RS. Clip it on my briefcase. Excellent sound quality and usability.

Rating:
Summary: Beware, DSS is Olympus proprietary format, not a "standard"
Review: Yes, the features of this machine are nice, but the DSS format's name "Digital Speech Standard" and Olympus's touting of it as an "international standard" are deliberately misleading. In fact, Olympus owns it and does not even make it available enough for software vendors to develop conversion software. There is no way to, for instance, convert a CD audio, or MP3, or any other audio file into DSS format in order to play it on the DM-10. If you buy the thing thinking you can load 10 hours of CD audio books onto it, you will find that instead you only get 1 hour (in WMA format). And if you call Olympus to ask about it, their tech support people based in India will just tell you tough luck.