RCA RP5140 1GB USB 276 Hour MP3 Recording Digital Voice Recorder

I received the recorder quicker than I expected, and it works great!

I suggest using the Microphone (included) instead of the built-in mic if recording a meeting, and play around with the 'sensitivity' setting. I use "high" for meetings and med or low if I'm just recording my own lecture (if I'm wearing the microphone).

Best of all, its in mp3 format... only improvement I can think of is to have the memory on a removable card so you could just plug it into a computer as is, you have to fool around with a usb cable I love this gadget. it will also play mp3's.

I bought this on the strength of H. Rosser's review, and am glad to say that it has turned out to be a good buy. Small and easy to handle, I like the fact that I can transfer the recordings as mp3 files directly through a USB connection to my computer. Playback of sound on the recorder itself is pretty shoddy, of course, but the sound quality of the recording is good on my computer. I've even recorded myself playing music; and while the music playback leaves a lot to be desired, it's good enough for practice purposes. It's a great voice recorder, picks up sound from a couple yards away. If you're looking for a good music recorder, you should probably search for something more high-end. Only real complaint: the display screen has small type that's hard to read, but once you've got your settings programmed in, you probably won't have to use the interface much anyway. I definitely recommend it.

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I wish only to add a few thoughts to the above reviews.

Not only is it a great little recorder, it is a great little player. It has 6 folders for recording into, and a music folder for playback. However, I have found that the music folder is not the only folder where you can deposit files. I have an audio book cd that I converted to 128kb mp3 files, with names like cd1-01..cd5-13 and I've placed them in folder 6. On startup, it loads the directories of all folders, apparently alphabetically, and so it retains the correct order of files I placed there.

The advantage of placing files in folder 1-6 is that bookmarks then work; they don't have any affect in the music folder. Fast forward is also different in the number folders. If you hold down ff for 30 seconds of elapsed time (but it takes about 7 seconds real time) it then begins to skip by minutes quickly. In the music folder it does not do this, but skips faster, about 15x. I had at first thought I needed to create mp3 files (placed in the numbered folders) with the same kinds of names and bit rates as were found upon recording, but this does not appear to be so. It doesn't, however, display any of the mp3 tags (author, etc.) in any of the 7 folders. I've not tried nesting folders either.

The highest recording bit rate is 64kb which for an mp3 is not quite that good, but acceptable for speech. I've tried other microphones, and I suspect one must use one with high sensitivity to do get a reasonable volume. But it seems limited not by the microphone but the mp3 bit rate. Still, my daughter is able to use it to record her singing with piano and can use that to tell how she did. I bought both of us one.

I'm using rechargeable batteries, a pair of 800mah nimh hybrio's and they last long enough for that after a few days of many hours (over 8) of playback and recording, I generally still have 1 of 3 bars showing. Generally, I then swap the batteries since this is quite easy. It claims you should do the change in 20 seconds or the time/date will be lost, but this presents no problem as I change one at a time. I don't really know how long they would last in other modes to exhaustion.

I don't do as much recording as I so far use mine for playback of audio books and use the bookmarks to remember interesting parts to play for others using the built in speaker. The earphone jack works nicely with powered speakers, and I even can use it with a 3 inch radio shack box speaker I had lying around (non powered) and it is loud enough to listen to next to my pillow in bed, and the quality is thus much better than the little internal speaker (which is rather tinny, but good for a quick review if you don't have headphones or wish to play for others).

Button placement seems more logical than it's smaller earlier model the 5130 (the only one I could find a pdf manual on line for). All the functions appear to be the same as that model. It also has editing functions, but I find it easer to upload to my computer and use an audio editor, but I suppose in a pinch these advanced functions could be useful. I find the slow and fast playback functions to work well too.

So, although I bought it as a little toy recorder (at a steal of a price found locally for $30), I've found it to be quite versatile and as the others have mentioned, quite a good little recorder. And it looks much like an mp3 player / flash drive. It claims you can put any sort of data files on it as well, but I've not tried that.

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Very compact, nice looking, huge memory, 7 folders (6 for voice recordings and the 7th for MP3 files).

This recorder has a lot of nice features (see the other reviews), but as a recorder, it falls short of the very thing it was designed to do record.

It has 4 quality settings for making voice recordings; Long Play, Standard Play, High Quality and Super High Quality. Forget LP and SP. The sound quality is so degraded that they should have left them off, -but then, they would not be able to brag about recording up to 280 hours. In reality, you will use either HQ or SHQ, reducing the record time of the unit significantly. As for HQ and SHQ, I did not find a lot of difference between them. Both should be better than they are. For example, when making a voice recording of myself I discovered whistling sounds as I spoke. But I don't make whistling sounds in person. I tried this over and over, holding the unit at different angles, but I got the same results. I also heard faint beeping sounds in some of my recordings although there was nothing beeping around me.

As for downloaded MP3 files, they did not playback with whistling noises which I was happy about. However, I have a gripe about the way the files are stored. They are stored as numbers. So, if you are saving music files, you need to remember the number of each song because the title is not displayed not even a fraction of a title. If you like to play certain songs more than others, you will need to know the number so you can find and play it you can not scan the titles and then play.

The other thing I don't like about this recorder is that some of the screen display is microscopic. While some text is adequate (I don't know why voice recorders can not be made with bigger screens), other text is not sized the same and is not even readable. You will need to look at the instruction sheet to figure out what the "dots" are on your display.

The belt holder leaves much to be desired. It is hard to get the recorder into it because the spandex is very tight. I suppose it will loosen as it ages. This presented a problem for me because the buttons kept getting compressed, turning off the unit or putting it into fast forward. I finally realized that there is a "lock" feature on the recorder which prevents accidental button presses. So, remember to put the lock on before you insert the recorder into the very tight belt holder. By the way, the only thing that will fit in the holder is the recorder. There is no place to put spare batteries or the earphones when not in use.

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Needed small digit recorders for judges at an outdoor marching band contest. They were easy to use and got the job done.