Customer Reviews

Olympus WS-300M 256 MB Digital Voice Recorder and Music Player

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(61)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

As a marketer doing a lot of research interviews, customer feedback, PR work, and the like, my share of recording interviews has made me all to familiar with botched recording, bad microphones, tinny sound, etc. After years of trying different audio recorders, I was left wondering if there was such a thing as good audio quality without shelling out some big bucks.

Finally, fed up after burning the midnight oil on trying to decipher one too many bad recordings, I decided to give it another go, and did a little homework. I relied heavily on the reviews in David Battino's blogs (he writes for O'Reilly and you can find him with a simple web search) and bought the Olympus DS-2...wow, what a change. The only drawback for my purposes was that the 64 MB memory was on the low side for storing long interviews.

Enter the WS-300m series, with 256 MB memory - for almost the same price! What's not to love? The built in microphone is amazing (as good or better than the already impressive DS-2), managing files went from easy to easier, it's even smaller, even lighter, and this one uses one AAA battery to spare you from having yet one more electronic to charge.

Separate the battery compartment from the main section and *voila* A built-in USB connector plugs your WS-300m directly into your computer, with no extra cables to worry about. I carry mine with me all the time and have started using it for things like diary and memos, memorization, and jotting down ideas for new material.

I only wish this was around years ago.

Out of the box this pocketsize digital voice recorder by Olympus lets you record over 8 hours of material, however you can tweak things to get more juice out of it. Still, if you want to record interviews (for instance) for later semi-professional use (or even re-use, as in the case of an audio podcast) this little one MORE than does the trick. And when you are ready, just plug it into a USB port in your computer and pull the audio files from it much like you would from any other portable storage device.

So far, I've only encountered one "issue" with it (and it's not something you cannot circumvent easily by throwing the files at a file conversion utility). It generates WMA files for every audio track it creates. Since I could care less about these Microsoft audio formats (I prefer my audio tracks to be in MP3 or AAC formats), I ended up tossing the files into iTunes, which did a nice job of converting them back into MP3s. Other than this minor inconvenience, getting this d.v. recorder/player has been nothing but joy!

Update (02/26/2007): I have gotten asked this question a couple of times, so I am posting in here how you go about converting the WMA files to MP3s using iTunes.

1) You drag the files and drop them (literally inside iTunes).
2) You get a screen saying "One or more of the songs you are adding to iTunes... are in the WMA format. iTunes will automatically conver them to the MP3 format so that they can be added to your iTunes library."
3) Past that point, they become available through your library as MP3 files.

- SMALL size
- mp3 playback
- Roomy memory
- Good quality
- Easy to use
- Compatible with MAC
- No additional wire but built in USB port

I'm quite happy with this little recorder - and I do mean little. It's amazing how so much functionality can be included in a device this size. The sound quality is very good when recording voices. The recorder's design makes setting functions easy and intuitive. I especially like the integrated USB plug that can be used to upload the sound files to a computer. You simply separate the battery housing from remainder of the case to expose the USB plug.

Even though the recorder is not really intended for it, I also tried recording music - but found the results less than satisfying. It is possible to use a higher quality external microphone, but I have not done that yet.

So far, my impression is that it uses extremely little battery power. I have been amazed how long it goes on a charged battery.

The recorder does not come with a carrying case, or even a lanyard to allow hanging it around your neck, so you'll have to be creative to use it and store it securely.

First of all, this is a fine music player. The "WOW" and bass enhancements add to inherently good sound quality. There's even a 5-band equalizer. If that's your main use for the unit, though, it might be better to spend a little more money on the WS-320M with four times as much memory. Loading music into the unit couldn't be simpler. Just plug it into a USB port and copy your MP3 and WMA files to its Music folder. The tiny display shows all the song titles, so you can select what you want to hear--or choose to play everything or just the contents of one folder. It will hold any type of file, not just those it understands, so you can use it to transfer data from one PC to another.

For recording, there are several choices of quality. At the lowest quality setting, it will hold 68 hours, so the memory capacity is quite sufficient. Also you can select whether to record at full sensitivity or to cut it back and talk close to the mic for noise reduction. At maximum sensitivity I have gotten excellent recordings of bird calls, even with birds more than 100 feet away. The recording are stored in WMA format. They can be reviewed on the unit itself or copied to a PC for editing and enhancement.

It does not come with a carrying case. I found a leather glasses case with padding inside, a velcro flap, and a sturdy pocket clip. This has proved to be an ideal case. If you wear glasses, you probably have one of these lying around. The WS-300M is so small that the case will hold the earphones, too, and a couple of extra batteries, probably even a small external microphone.

Olympus seems to have incorporated just about every possible feature into a very small case, an amazing feat of engineering. I really can't think of anything not to like about this device.

I bought this unit to replace a perfectly working Sony ICD-MS1, because of Sony's propietary file format. This unit records in WMA (Windows Media Audio), which makes it much, much easier to convert recordings to CD format or to MP3. However, I have a few misgivings about it, as follows:

1. It's light, but it's TOO light, so that it feels almost flimsy. I was therefore kind of forced to purchase the case to protect it. It is well made, but I think it could use a bit more weight. I worried that if I dropped it, it'd be finished.

2. It's very noisy if you're using the internal mic, unless you set it somewhere and don't touch or move it. Because I use it to record sermons (yes, I'm a preacher), I solved this by getting the external, clip-on microphone and keeping the unit in an inside pocket while speaking.

3. I love the idea of separating the battery compartment from the unit and plugging it directly into a USB port to copy the files to my computer for processing, but the unit loses the time when I disconnect the battery unit. I finally tired of resetting the time each time, so I just don't worry about it, since I only use the device for recording, then as soon as I can I dump everything to my PC.

Those are the majors. Otherwise, I do like the device quite a lot, but I wish the case were of a sturdier plastic (looks like it might scratch too easily) or even metallic. It's also a little pricey for only 256MB and no expansion capability, but since I only need to record at most a bit over an hour or so, that's really no issue. Total recording time is something like 17 hours in the highest quality MONO mode (I don't need stereo). Like another reviewer, I haven't tried the music player function so can't comment on that.

All in all, I think there are better units available, and my only reason for purchasing this one was because of the file format. If the issues raised above are not vital to your situation, I think you'll be adequately satisfied with this, but I'd strongly recommend shopping around thoroughly first.

I use the WS-300M for research interviews. Participants in my research barely notice it is sitting between us, which allows them to feel less constrained as they talk, which used to happen in the old tape-recorder days. The microphone is very sensitive, picking up trailing-off sentences easily, yet background noises are not a problem with this little recorder. Transferring files to my laptop couldn't be easier with the built-in USB feature. My only complaint (and it is a minor one) is that there is no "pause" feature so stopping the recording results in a new file once the recorder is restarted. I carry the WS-300M with me all the time in my purse as the opportunity for interviewing study participants comes up unexpectedly. Importantly, my transcriptionist has no problems hearing the files made with this recorder, so my data is staying very much intact. This is a great buy.

I bought this recorder for recording my music jam sessions (frown if you want all you geeks with high-end Boss and Edirol stuff). I spent over two months researching to find the cheapest recorder that recorded highest quality possible for live music recording. This was it. I recorded live from the built-in mics, I also recorded using my Mackie mixer's stereo output and plugged it directly into the mic jack (had to turn my mixer's output way, WAY down!) I burned CD's of my recording and passed them around to my friends. Hands down, this was the cheapest way to get the word out. Who cares it wasn't 24 bit 96 kHz pro recording? You can't find anything to do that under 400 bucks. Get this, get a WMA to MP3 converter (you may already have it) and you can upload your songs to whoever, etc. etc.

Now for the bad news. It's so small, I lost it. I used to carry it around in my waist pouch. I used it all the time. Recorded my music lessons, on-the-spot song ideas, and so on. It must have gotten dropped off somewhere inadvertantly. After looking for it for a couple of months, I'm afraid I have to buy another one. I can't live without it. Or, maybe they'll up the specs to 48kHz stereo and higher frequency response for the same price (I can dream, can't I?)

I have been using this recorder for college lectures and found it works really well! It is simple and fast to upload the information onto your computer, which makes saving and accessing files really easy. The clarity of my professors has been great (even manages to pick up my professor who mumbles at the blackboard!). However, you don't want to bump the recorder because it creates quite a noise when you play it back!!

The main reason I only gave this 4 stars, is that a few of my files have been corrupted and it even lost one of my files. How I would have loved to have had the audio file of my chemistry professor "trying out" my new digital voice recorder by singing opera..lol

Overall, a nice recorder; a few bugs but not too bad!!

I bought Olympus WS-300M 256 MB Digital Voice Recorder about 3 weeks ago to use as a compact digital recorder to record tunes played in old time and irish music jam sessions. Once I got the controls memorized, I found this recorder to be great for picking up very clear recordings. The lower sensitivity setting works just fine most of the time for close range (within 10 - 15 feet) instrument recording. I also bought an M-15 microphone but I'm not sure that it adds much, also it is mono.

I ran into problems however when I tried to convert the WMA files to mp3 on my iMac G5, PPC, with OS X 10.4.8. I tried a number of audio converters, including Switch, Amadeus, Audion and trying to just drop it into iTunes without success. I finally stumbled upon EasyWMA. This shareware app is designed for the Mac and does a great and very quick job converting the Olympus WMA files to mp3, aiff and m4a. Its a great combination for musicians with mac computers.

I do wish that the recorder was a little sturdier however, but it seems like it should hold up if used with care. I bought a simple case that also hold the earphone, spare battery and M-15 mic.