Olympus WS-500 Digital Voice Recorder (Blue)

Comment: 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.

Comment: This recorder is great. It is very sensitive, plenty of adjustments & options and battery life is most excellent. Very pleased with it.

Comment: 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!

Comment: 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.

Comment: I had an older Olympus voice recorder, which I lent out once too often and didn't get back. I really appreciated the direct USB design. This was the replacement. While I do not need a music player, I selected this model because of the battery recharge feature. The battery included with the unit arrived with no charge. After charging the battery correctly, and the unit showing that the battery was fully charged, I was only able to get 4.5 hours of recording done before the battery died. I contacted the company, and was told that they would not send out a replacement battery. This was after I was placed on hold until I disconnected once. I would have to send them the device for repair, or return it to Amazon for replacement. I kind of need it, and it is an inconvenience to do either. A single battery cannot be purchased: you must buy a pack of four. I paid enough for the recorder that a working battery should be included, or issued upon request, I think. All the mailing is going to mean time without it, or more money when the price is already not inconsequential. The menu complexity isn't bad, but I am used to the previous device which had one that was similar. The sound quality of recorded material was average, which is surprising with the noise filter feature. The max volume is not very loud, but plugged into a computer the volume was sufficient using computer speakers. The direct usb design is nice, but Olympus is not the only company offering that anymore. Back it will go, and I will order a Sony perhaps. I'm irritated with the company not standing behind their product and replacing the battery, and that I will have to buy something else, and wait for it to be delivered, before this can be replaced.