Olympus WS-500 Digital Voice Recorder (Blue)

I bought this as a backup to my other Olympus recorder (which I frequently lend out). My other recorder is an Olympus WS-100 which I bought 4 years ago. It was one of the first digital voice recorders ever made. It has served me well.

This unit contains a number of improvements over the WS-100 and the WS-400.

When I bought this, I was afraid I would have to carry around a USB cable with me. However, this unit has a little slide button on the side which extends a built-in USB connector. Plugging this into a USB port is a snap.

This unit is a little more compact than the WS-100. It also seems to solve the record delay which was a time vampire on the WS-400. This unit starts to record almost immediately on pressing the record button.

I would give this unit five stars except except the menu is almost indecipherable without spending an entire day memorizing and studying it. This means that you pretty much have to have the manual available for the first months you use this or you will not be able to use most of the features (unfortunately, this seems normal for most digital personal devices nowadays (except for Apple products)).

The arcane menu arrangement does not lend itself to quick and easy use of the unit if there are constant changes to your recording requirements unless you memorize the manual or have it available.

Other than that the plusses are that it supports Vista 64 bit, and, contains all of the features of the WS-400. The unit is easy to snap record conversations and other items.

It is a good buy at the price and easier to use, with all of the features, than any of the other small personal recorders I've looked at over the years by other manufacturers.

Specifications:

Recording Format: WMA

Input level: -70dBv

Maximum working output: 60mW (8 ohm speaker)

NAND FLASH memory 2GB this unit works excellently as a flash drive with VISTA 64 or 32.

MIC Jack: 3.5mm mini-jack; impedance 2k ohms

EAR jack: 3.5mm mini-jack; impedance 8 ohms or more

RECORDING TIMES:

STXQ mode 34 h 30 min.

STHQ mode 69 h 40 min.

STSP mode 139 h 25 min.

HQ mode 139 h 25 min.

SP mode 247 h 10 min.

LP mode 544 h. 55 min.

This thing is tiny! the screen is an inch wide, and even though the buttons are small, they are not hard to use. A firmware update allows it to record in mp3 format. Sound quality is excellent, I spoke in a normal, close-conversation voice, from 30 feet away in large room it was quiet, but very audible. Unlike the other reviewer said, it DOES display "full battery" when done charging.

It has stereo sound level indicators during recording. Built in speaker is paltry, listening on a headphone or external speaker gives the real quality. The menu system is totally fine, not confusing, thing are organized in a hierarchy format. The adjustable-level VOR (called VCVA) works VERY well. Recording in conf mode in either WMA ST XQ or MP3 128 makes crisp, highly sensitive recordings.

This recorder is full-featured and as an audio engineer, I'm impressed!

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First of all, I bought this for my husband who is a drummer and a vocalist. He wanted a recorder of some kind to do karaoke music recorded with his voice. I had no idea about any of these recorders, so I started doing research. The Olympus brand seemed to have the better reviews. But none of the recorder reviews were great. Well, I finally decided on this WS-500 DVR. Well, I'm glad that I did because my husband took this and figured everything out by himself. This astounded me becuse my husband is not a technology person. He doesn't even want to know anything about technology. He has never been on my computer, programmed any of our DVRs, VCR's, etc. But you get my meaning. But the biggest surprise was the sound of this recorder. He recorded 4 songs. I uploaded them onto my computer (Just slid the lever on the recorder and pushed it into the USB on my computer to upload) I ripped it on WMP and then burned the songs to a CD. I was able to adjust the sound with the equalizer and it sounded awesome!

The only con I have about this recorder is that the instructions are really hard to decipher. You have to guess a lot that you are doing the right thing. But this is just a minor con.

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I bought this for the purpose of recording song ideas on guitar and piano. Even though it's advertised as a voice recorder, I took a chance and got it instead of all the more expensive models. It has, so far, worked out great. It's served my purpose for capturing my creative ideas on either instrument. The quality is surprisingly fantastic. I've even thought that I can bring some of the recordings into my "real" studio and incorporate them into tracks. I carry it with me all the time so that I'm able to instantly capture something on the radio in the car, or any other music that I run across which I might want.

The bonus is that I'm able to dump mp3's to the device, as well. Many advantages to that.

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This little recorder is an excellent value. I use it to record lectures in college. I bought an additional directional microphone attachment to help cut out some of the extraneous class noise. It works beautifully. I couldn't get over how small and lightweight it is. I had an old mini-tape unit from years ago and am amazed at the difference in sound quality and storage capacity. This has 2Gb and will hold something like 30 hours of recordings. I've never run out of space. It has an MP3 recording format option, so the recordings can be easily played on any standard music player like Windows Media or iTunes; no need for proprietary software to complicate matters. Battery life is sufficient as long as I don't try to record more than a few hours at a time. That's more than enough for most classes. The flip-out USB connector is really handy for transferring what I've recorded to my PC. The surplus/unused storage can even double as a thumb drive if you want. And if you use Dragon Naturally Speaking, it will supposedly transcribe the recordings as long as they have very clear sound quality. I've not used that function, yet, but I like that it's there.

It's rechargeable using a special USB cable (included) plugged into a PC. The only thing I don't like, and the reason I give it 4 instead of 5 stars, is that it didn't come with a power adapter so I can't charge it away from the PC. Otherwise, I highly recommend it.