Rating  - Great recorder, but have to pay extra for Player Plus 7
I have to write minutes and don't take shorthand so a good recorder is a must. So far, Olympus recorders have proven to be the best. I purchased this recorder for its ability to export wav files playable in
Windows Media Player. My boss and I are able to share the meeting recording with my colleagues and the recorder has been able to capture the voices around the room. I use it on lecture and the highest quality because the women often have a habit of speaking softly in meetings so it can be difficult to capture their voices. The size of the rooms for our meetings vary, but most of them seat around 15-25 people along long tables and some seating on the sides.
I like the option to make podcasts. I agree with the criticism about the speaker on the back, however most of the time I am using ear phones to listen to the recording as I type minutes so this is not such a big issue and the speakers don't give you the best sound for listening anyway. Plus if you record anything in stereo you don't want to use the built in speaker.
The included DDS Player 7 software is supposed to be compatible with IBM Via Voice and Dragon Naturally Speaking, neither of which I have tried yet. My only gripe so far is that you have to pay $10 extra to upgrade to DSS Player Plus 7 to access some additional features such as file splitting and binding and seamless connection to Via Voice 10 and Dragon 8.
Overall I am satisfied with the quality of the recording and features, but a star off for making customers pay an extra $10 just to access a few extra features.
Rating  - Wow - was that fast!
Ordered on a Thursday afternoon - received Friday afternoon - standard shipping! Excellent! Great product - exactly what I needed.
Rating - Outstanding Voice Recorder
I've only had mine for 2 days now and it's so easy to use I feel like a pro at it. You simply plug in the included USB cable, go to My Computer, and copy and paste your audio files onto your hard drive. It's as simple as that! I use Windows XP and did not need to install any drivers or the included software to do this. I haven't even opened the included CD yet and everything is working great. I was also able to copy mp3 music files from my hard drive to the recorder with no problem, and the sound is actually not bad!
The audio quality and mic sensitivity are excellent. You can adjust the contrast and the playback volume which can actually get somewhat loud considering how small the speaker is (the speaker is on the back).
It uses .wma file format which will not work with Audacity freeware, but I found a freeware called WinFF that batch-converts .wma's to .mp3's and it works great. Be sure to download the online .pdf manual as it is far more detailed and informative than the included paper manual.
My unit came with earpiece-style headphones and 2 generic brand AAA alkaline batteries that are really lasting! I have about 6-8 hours of overall use into it and the 3-notch battery meter still shows completely full. The included USB cable is 5 feet long and is the exact same style plug used by digital cameras. The unit has a metal chassis that feels cool to the touch when left in an air-conditioned room. The upper left-hand corner has a red-green dual color LED light which can be completely disabled in the menu settings. It lights up red while recording, green while playing back, and will blink red 3 times fast if you do something wrong.
By disabling the LED light and the voice guide (the unit talks to you in a British female voice) via the menu settings, you can make the unit completely inconspicuous so that you can secretly record someone with it in your pants pocket. It's about the same size and thickness of a Nokia cell phone, except that it's narrower, so it's quite small and fits your pocket easily. After you press the record button, you can then slide the power switch (on the lower right surface) to HOLD, which will lock the unit so that your record won't accidentally be stopped while it rustles around in your pocket. This rustling however can cause a very loud noise to be recorded, so you have to sit still!
The plastic stereo mic is detachable and then there's another permanent mic on the top right surface of the recorder. Both the stereo mic and the permanent mic seem to be equally as clear and sensitive. I haven't been able to notice any difference in the sound, and because the stereo mics are so close to each other, there really doesn't seem to be any right versus left audio difference. But the stereo mic looks kinda cool though.
PROS: Ease of use, battery life, audio quality, compact size, record time, I could go on and on.
CONS: High $$$ price tag, .wma file format. The display uses a small thin font that is hard to see. The contrast doesn't seem very crisp, no matter how you adjust it (Don't be fooled by the photos. That is just the product display sticker that you peel off). The backlight is rather dim and should be twice as bright. Most cell phones nowadays have nice bright backlights with clear, crisply-contrasted displays, but this recorder lacks in those areas. A longer (or even adjustable) backlight timeout would be nice. My unit arrived with a noticeable dent on the front bottom where it has "DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER DS-40" printed on it. The detachable stereo mic feels flimsy and cheaply made. The 1/8-inch stereo plug that sticks out of it wobbles, and even when the stereo mic is attached (plugged in), it still wobbles a bit. I once got my unit stuck in slow playback mode by accident somehow (which makes people sound very slow and drunk), and it was very difficult to figure out how to get it OUT of this mode and back to normal!
Rating  - Not What I expected
I purchased an Olympus DS-40 from Fry's Electronics for $160.00. I got a box that contained the digital voice recorder, the software, a usb port cable, headphones, and an AC Adapter. I returned it thinking that I was going to get a better deal on Amazon.com. What I got was a digital recorder, the software, and two AAA batteries for $114.00. As far as I'm concerned I did NOT get a better deal. In thought I was going to get the same thing that I returned, but I learned that you get what you pay for. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A PHONE NUMBER TO CALL TO TALK TO SOMEONE. I look on Amazon.com to contact them by phone and all I get is a list of items that I can buy for customer service training. I will be returning this product to the fact it is not the complete product that I was paying for.
Rating - A novice got excellent results
I wanted a something I could use to make recordings of our 45 minute Sunday school class to send to one of our class members serving in Iraq. Our classroom is the size of a regular conference room but with terrible acoustics. The last time I used a voice recorder was back when cassette tapes were popular, so I'm a total novice.
Here's what I found: a
1) Learning curve: 1 hour to read the whole manual, configure the device, and make some tests
2) Effort to record: easy (turn on, press the record button, press the stop button when done, turn off)
3) Download & conversion to mp3: 10 seconds for me, 2 or 3 minutes for the computer.
4) Sound quality: excellent - very clear with very little background noise.
5) Overall experience (usability, etc): excellent. The manual and interface were both easy to read and use.
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