Olympus Linear Recorder (LS-11)

Of all the currently available pocket-size portable voice recorders, the LS-11 is one of the most expensive and one of the best. I have used this device to record some professional interviews and the sound quality is generally excellent even with the intrusion of occasional background noise.

Plus points:

1. Its construction oozes quality with a tough lightweight metal casing

2. Chunky, high-quality and easy-to-use controls

3. Easily mastered, intuitively designed navigation menus

4. Choice of recording formats: the default PCM which is fine for everyday use, also Wave, WMA, MP3 Record and Playback

5. Excellent built-in directional/omnidirectional mikes (choice of settings); you can control the record level manually or set it to "auto" and the LS-11 assesses the sound level itself and adjusts accordingly - this good for environments where the sound level changes constantly; you can also plug in any...Read more

I'm a journalist who has to cover conferences as well as one to one interviews. So far the Olympus LS-11 handheld digital recorder has performed brilliantly in the month that I've used it. It is especially good at up close and personal interviews, even with lots of background noise, as you can hear in this interview with Internet founder Vint [...]
I'm still experimenting with different settings, but the factory settings work pretty well. I haven't tried the software that came with the unit as I am familiar with the free Audacity editing package. But Audacity has its limitations, so I will give the other a try.
I really like the uncompressed PLM recording, so much so that I've not used the MP3 facility. But as I ran out of memory (despite having 8Gb on board) in the middle of an interview, I'm going to expriment with high bit rate MP3.
I bought the companion device that lets yoiui record phone calls. I've only used it once, and found it easy to set up but fiddly to...Read more

Looks like I am going to have to send this back for evaluation by the manufacturer. I bought this recorder to try my hand at recording nature sounds- rain, thunderstorms, riverside sounds, birds- that type of thing. I am a complete amateur, so take that in consideration with this review. I have been using this recorder for over two months now. I usually record at least an hour at a time and often several hours, mostly at very high bit-rates. I have babied this unit and take great care to protect it. The biggest problem I have with it is that it introduces electronic "clicks" into the recording. It is getting worse lately- about 1 every minute in today's recording. These appear as very large spikes in the waveform (Sony Soundforge audio editor). It is now such a problem that I can't use the recorder. I first noticed these spikes after a few weeks of use and they weren't as frequent or pronounced as they are now.
What do I like about it? I love the form-factor and layout of the...Read more