SONY ICD-B17 Digital Voice Recorder

Rating:
Summary: Sony ICD-B17
Review: I have both the Sony B-7 and B-16. Both are excellent recorders and especially if you are involved with EVP. I have received great results with both the B-7 and B-17. It is very easy to use and gives quality results. It's very clear and sensitive.
Looks great and performs well. This recorder is in a low and fair price range, I reccomend the B-17 to anyone looking for an inexpensive way to acheive better than average sound recordings. Remember, any recorder is only as good as the operator .....Harry Flagle / Sound engineer, CBS Studio Center.

Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: On the surface, this appeared to be a great little recorder. I wanted to give it to a blind person. However, I couldn't get it to record in HQ mode. It only recorded in LP mode which is not mentioned in the manual, making T and P hard to tell apart or Z and V. I have been using recorders all my life and found the mic also not to be adequate. Holding it a reasonable distance from your mouth distorted the sound, just a little farther away and the sound wasn't audible. High mic sensitivity distorted and low mic sensitivity made the recordings muffled. You can record with it, but if the date isn't set, it keeps flashing and drains the batteries. It is very difficult for a blind person to set the date. Not only that, the battery indicator would register "low" when the batteries were on a full charge. I returned the product. Yes, it did fancy things like allowing you to insert comments into messages that were already recorded, but when you would go to play your message a day later, the batteries, which worked in other equipment, wouldn't operate the recorder. Okay, maybe it was defective, but a red flag goes up when I see something like that. Besides, the blind person I purchased it for couldn't use it because of that draining and flashing indicator. I didn't like being lied to. The fact that the speed isn't mentioned in the manual, to me, constitutes a lie. Even if it had recorded in SP it would have been an improvement.

Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: On the surface, this appeared to be a great little recorder. I wanted to give it to a blind person. However, I couldn't get it to record in HQ mode. It only recorded in LP mode which is not mentioned in the manual, making T and P hard to tell apart or Z and V. I have been using recorders all my life and found the mic also not to be adequate. Holding it a reasonable distance from your mouth distorted the sound, just a little farther away and the sound wasn't audible. High mic sensitivity distorted and low mic sensitivity made the recordings muffled. You can record with it, but if the date isn't set, it keeps flashing and drains the batteries. It is very difficult for a blind person to set the date. Not only that, the battery indicator would register "low" when the batteries were on a full charge. I returned the product. Yes, it did fancy things like allowing you to insert comments into messages that were already recorded, but when you would go to play your message a day later, the batteries, which worked in other equipment, wouldn't operate the recorder. Okay, maybe it was defective, but a red flag goes up when I see something like that. Besides, the blind person I purchased it for couldn't use it because of that draining and flashing indicator. I didn't like being lied to. The fact that the speed isn't mentioned in the manual, to me, constitutes a lie. Even if it had recorded in SP it would have been an improvement.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This is a very disappointing product. I only bought this because I thought it would be an improvement on my ICD-B15, but in fact this is a downgrade: it only has 2 folders(the B15 had five)and it only records in Long Play mode(though of course it does not state this anywhere in the manual) which means sound quality is half that of the B15's. Also there is no display light now. Goes without saying that the price is higher than that of the ICD-B15.
Thanks a lot SONY.