Olympus WS-321M Digital Voice Recorder and WMA Music Player

Comment: I needed a good digital recorder for law enforcement. So after reading many many reviews. I came up with the Olympus WS-321M digital voice recorder.

What I like about this recorder. First I like the simplicity you don't even need instructions to use this. Some I have looked at make you feel like you need to take Digital Recording 101 to use it.

I like that you don't have to worry about cords or extra parts to download your interview into evidence. Just plug it into the computer via USB and your done. This recorder is a little more expensive than the $50 models but again I wanted a time saver and not to have to keep up with a cord to down load files, so that aspect was almost invaluable to me.

Additionally you can spend a $1000 on these things. I spent $69, found a refurbished one. The going price is about $145. I have had great luck with refurbished electronics. And this recorder is working great as well.

The other thing my husband and I tested the sound quality. I wear an external vest carrier at work so my concerns are do I need and external mic with this. The answer no. I actually held the recorder squeezed between my hands covering all the mic ports and speakers. I was able to clearly pic up my husbands voice normally speaking from the next room about 15, to 20' away. Very impressed, I didn't expect that at all.

I haven't tried it at work but we did quite a few tests with different background noise levels and simulating an interview. I just can't say enough about how happy I am with this recorder. I'm convinced that I don't ever need to buy the zillion dollar model, this one is great.

Comment: I'm a singer, voice teacher, and conductor of a children's chorus. One of my adult students recently brought a similar model to a lesson to record the entire lesson, and I asked how they got enough volume on playback to sing along after the fact. He told me that he saves the files to his computer, then burns them onto a CD... I immediately went home and bought one!

Recordings of the kids singing for choreographers to use when they create... a practice CD of me singing my tenor lines that I needed to memorize for a recent choral performance... no endless pile of cassette tapes lying around... the uses are many! (Just make sure that the setting that automatically pauses during silences is not used, so that the device doesn't edit out all of the rests!)

Saving recordings into different files is intuitive for anyone who saves documents on a PC. Highly recommended.

Comment: Bought it for my girlfriend b/c baby is going to be recording her memoirs, and baby absolutely loves it!!

Comment: It was a great purchase, easy to use, great sound, many features, smaller than i expected..

Comment: i ordered one to record my chem lectures and i dont regret the purchase. this is a great product, i ended up buying one for my mom too so she could record her classes as well. its lightweight and easy to use!