I have had been using the Sony MZM200 Professional Portable Hi MD Recorder for the past year for digital recording of meetings and lectures. I have had good luck with it but I could never just hand it off to someone else to use. So I began to look at flash based recorders. The model I kept coming back to was the ICD-U70 but I was concerned by the proprietary file format and the difficulty that I had heard about converting it to a more standard format.Well, with the ICD-UX70 & UX80 this major concern was addressed as the file format used is MP3. Now I can just load it directly to my computer and then to the website for podcasting with no transfer or conversion. I usually do some cleaning or normalizing using Nero but oh how easy this has become. With the ease of this unit, I can imagine that I might not be using my MD recorder nearly as much.
I have used the unit connected to a sound board, an external microphone (Sony ECM-CS10 Tie-Clip-Style and Sony ECMMS907 Digital Recording Microphone) and by itself, and I have been very impressed with the quality of the recording.
The only thing with which you need to check and be comfortable is the internal mic sensitivity. Do some tests to see how the recording level and background noise comes out. Once you become familiar with the abilities of this unit, I think you will be happy with the recordings.
I think the size is great; if it was any smaller (thumb-drive sized) the buttons would either be too small or too close together for my fingers to operate. Sometimes small is too small this unit is not too small.
Be careful about your expectations of the internal speaker you can only get so much sound out of a teeny speaker. It is good to check playback but I would use headphones or play through another powered device if you really need to hear the recording. You can get battery powered speakers for cheap if you really need it.
The only thing that could improve this device is removable memory but for the price, you can buy 2 or 3 UX80s (2gb) for the price of a recorder that uses removable memory. So, this is a minor issue.
Thank you to all of you who complained about the U70 and got Sony to wake-up. I appreciate it.
My initial purchase excuse was to record voice conversations and classroom lectures as well as listen to prerecorded audio recordings, but after reading the documentation it looks equally well suited for dictation or music when used with an external (higher quality) mic or other audio input with excellent audio (see one possibility below). Is reportedly compatible with, but does not include, Dragon Naturally Speaking (I have not tested however).
The use of (the nearly universal) MP3 format is a huge plus (although an open source codec such as Ogg Vorbis might have been nice in some ways). The ICDUX70 records directly to the internal memory which can be easily read and written to by any computer that has USB just like a flash card (Sony only advertises compatibility with Windows and Mac, but my brief test with Ubuntu Linux showed that I was able to transfer (legally purchased) MP3 files to it and listen to them.
Reading the short manual is helpful for some features. The functionality is better than I expected. Included is user adjustable DPC (Digital Pitch Control) which allows play back at slower or faster speeds without distortion or pitch change, and after brief testing of the DPC feature I was quite impressed with the quality of playback.
MiniDisk recorders have in the past been a secret weapon of videographers or sound people for their own projects to capture sound that would other wise be missed. My Sony MiniDisk cost $300 but only had analog out. I normally would avoid compressed formates, but compared to analog audio, I can see how high quality could work well. For example, the UCDUX70 might make an excellent auxiliary audio recording source for event videographers (put in a fresh AAA battery, set record quality to highest (48khz, 192 kbps) hook it up to a good lapel mike, begin recording, activate the 'hold' slider to prevent accidental shutoff, stick the ICDUX70 in the groom's pocket) then sync it up with the DV video later to ensure you catch the "I do's" (much cheaper and more compact (1 3/4 oz) than a wireless setup).
It's hard to think of anything to improve on with this recorder, but if I had to (and for which I gave only 4 stars) I would suggest for the next model:
1) Need to add SD card compatibility for expandability and easier load/unload of data.
2) Higher quality construction this is not quite IPod fit-and-finish. I'm a bit worried about the multifunction thumb control. Quality of chassis construction is about that of a Sony digital video camera, but appears somewhat cruder due to the small overall size.
3) Perhaps a bit more control of the playback file order (up to 3 levels of folders are allowed which is plenty, but it labels them starting over from 1 within each folder, no matter what the file name). This makes it awkward to listen to my Teaching Company course which has 36 lectures (I put them into 6 different folders which show up renumbered in the folders so I have to calculate which lecture number is which). There is a way to use the wheel to find the actual name of the file, I'm just getting used to it.
4) Built in Mic sensitivity mentioned above is yet to be thoroughly tested. I used it to record a classroom lecture, and it think it did about as well as could be expected given the distance from the professor and the additional room noise. Very audible, but not good enough to do voice recognition automated transcription from. Quality is quite excellent, and volume was acceptable.
5) The included headphones are a bit cheap looking but sound pretty good (I would have preferred the occlusive rubber kind rather than the open type, but open buds have their advantages safety for one).
6) Side navigation buttons (record, pause, fast forward, fast reverse, next, previous, etc) are a bit small to easily press one at a time for my fingers.
7) It's not clear to me what role USB power plays in powering the device when connected to a computer (i.e. is a battery still needed haven't checked that yet). I know there are several optional accessories, including an AC adaptor that converts wall current to USB power for the unit. (Otherwise long recordings will be interrupted to change batteries, but only after about 8 hours per documents).
On the good side, I really like
1) Ease of use (Standard MP3, USB plug and play, multi-platform OS)
2) Small physical size
3) Generous recording time
4) Excellent fidelity (from my testing so far)
5) Unlike the MiniDisk recorders, user has direct access to the digital files (not just Analog out). They're MP3 compressed, but digital.
I also bought AAA rechargeable batteries (8-18 hours may be a long life for a battery used in a recording device, but too short time between having to buy and send to the hazardous waste recycler).
After accidentally nearly forgetting my recorder in a classroom, I attached a lanyard to mine (there is a lanyard loop but no lanyard is included).
Overall I am quite happy with it, would recommend it to others, and am trying to think of an excuse to buy another one. Maybe my MiniDisk recorder will show up on Amazon auctions sometime soon.
Buy Sony ICDUX70 Digital Voice Recorder MP3 Stereo Recording and Playback Now
I've been a heavy user of digital voice recorders in the past for noting down ideas when I'm in bed (and the lights are out -no paper), and for when I'm driving. I don't use it for much else, but when I do use it, I tend to use it a lot.I started out with Sony, then went to Olympus, and now I'm back to Sony again.
This little unit is my favorite so far. Transferring sound to my Mac couldn't possibly be easier. The size and weight are the best yet, as is the recording length.
Where I ding this little marvel is in a few areas: The buttons are too tiny, and too similar. The first Sony I use had a large and square record button, compared to small round buttons for everything else. Based on everything I've used so far, this is the "right" design; why Sony used all tiny round buttons for the UX70 I'll never know, but it forces me to check and recheck myself to see which buttons I'm really pushing.
Battery life is absolutely terrible. The worst I've ever used. And I don't mean continuous recording length (which is probably what the unit is designed to excel at). I mean the situation where you leave a fresh battery in the unit for a month, and then pick it up hoping to quickly jot down a voice note. I'm using high-capacity (2500 mAh) rechargeable AAAs, and these things can't even last *two weeks*. And that's with the unit on "Hold" the entire time!! This makes it completely useless as a "there when you need it" recorder, and I think it's going to make me get rid of it. My only option right now is to carry about the battery separately, but since the startup time for this unit is so long, it means I'm almost sure to forget the idea that I wanted to jot down in the first place.
The Olympus DS-2 shares this "passive life sucking" trait, whereas my first Sony did not. I bought this Sony thinking that I could count on them, but I guess my usage pattern is not very common?
The last negative is the internal speaker. Basically you should plan on never using it, or using it merely to confirm the fact that you did actually record something. However, the poor sound quality is unrelated to the quality of the recording itself, as playback on a computer will show.
If I could have long battery life (my first Sony would go 6 months without having to change two AAAs), then I would love this little guy. But in reality it just frustrates me that nearly every time I reach to use it, the battery has been completely drained. And this when it was supposedly "off" too. Leaving the display on, it doesn't even make it much longer than a week.
Read Best Reviews of Sony ICDUX70 Digital Voice Recorder MP3 Stereo Recording and Playback Here
I bought the ICDUX70 to record debates, and it works great. The two features I was most interested, this one has: it records directly into .mp3 (not into some proprietary format like most Olympus' do), and data transfer works as a USB flash drive (not requiring some proprietary Windoze/Mac software). These two features mean that the ICDUX70 works like a champ with Linux (Ubuntu 7.10)!I was also surprised how well this recorder works for podcasting (that is to say, listening to podcasts). The "easy-search" feature (10sec fwd or 3sec rev per button press) is more useful than a silent ffwd/rev, and (for catechism memorization), the A-B feature is super helpful. I haven't used for typing yet, but the DPC (digital pitch control -slow down the speed without distorting the voice) works great.
The unit is smaller and lighter than I expected, but seems well made enough. The little endcap over the USB connector is pretty cool, but I bet I'll eventually lose it. Battery life is good -I've had it for over a month now, recorded a debate, and listened to probably 20-30 hours of podcasts, and I'm still on the factory-supplied battery (a single AAA).
My one quibble (the only thing that my crappy old RCA Lyra did better) is folder/file management. When you create and nest folders to organize your .mp3 from the perspective of your computer, those hierarchies disappear from the perspective of the machine -it's just a long list of all the folders that contain .mp3 (in creation order). And when you go into a folder, you cannot see the _names_ of the files, so if you have no id3/id4 tags, you can't tell what's what. Also, there's no shuffle mode for playback, and no concept of a 'playlist', so if you want a device for listening to music, this is probably not it.
But it's good at what it's made for, i.e. recording and playing back speech.
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I bought this to record my piano classes at school, and the recordings I get are unlistenable. Whether I have the recorder sitting one or twelve feet away from the piano, every time that a note is hit with anything other than a pianissimo, it oversaturates the microphones on the recorder, causing static/distortion.On top of that, the fact that the speakers are situated precisely on the left/right of the device means that you need to have it centered in relation to the source of sound, or one of the channels will be silent or annoyingly quiet.
The sensitive mic mode picks up more noise than anything. If I set this in a quiet room and try to record a normal conversation, the general static/ambient sound drowns out the voices. And the "dictation" mode is no good for anything other than speaking half an inch away from the mics. One extreme or the other; there's no in-between setting.
It's also ridiculous that the device takes about 10-15 seconds to boot up. Waiting a couple seconds when you hit Record is fine, but if you need to record something in a rush, you'll probably miss it by the time this thing turns on.
The main reason I bought this was because it recorded in MP3 format. I borrowed an Olympus WS-311M a short time ago, which recorded in WMA, and the results I got with it were amazing (for anything from lectures to live music shows), so I figured I'd get something comparable (or better) from a Sony recorder. Not even close.
Perhaps the device would work fine hooked up to an external mic. But then that's an additional thing to carry around and worry about setting up, and detracts from the ease of use. A $100 recorder should record perfectly with whatever components it brings out of the box.
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