Customer Reviews

Sony ICDUX80 Digital Voice Recorder with MP3 Stereo Recording and Playback

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I purchased the Sony ICDUX80 Digital Voice Recorder mainly to do voice-over work for the videos I make for YouTube. My computer's built-in mic pics up the noise from the on-board fan, etc. so I decided to get a compact voice recorder.

The SONY was pretty much what I was looking for as far as features and price... plus I have always had great success with SONY equipment. Here are some of mike Pros & Cons:

PROS: Small, compact and easy to carry in a shirt pocket. Good Amazon price. Stereo mp3 files. USB direct plug to go into my Mac. Lots of drive space for the files. Easy to read menus.

CONS: Small, compact size.... I have fairly large hands and it is sometimes clumsy to navigate the menus with such small buttons. Audio quality was not quite what I expected -- even in the highest recording quality. There is a fair amount of "hiss".... something I would expect from an analogue voice recorder... but from a digital one? Also if you speak too closely to the mic, you will get "pop" -- when you pronounce your "P"'s. I have a tendency to over-enunciate when I do my voice-overs, so I had to learn to back off the mic a bit so as not to over-drive the mics.

All in all, I would give the Sony ICDUX80 Digital Voice Recorder 4 Stars

This remarkable little mp3 recorder is by no means just a voice recorder--it makes excellent, high-quality recordings of live music--an absolute first for any device this small. The built-in stereo mics are not bad for what they are, but when I plugged in my little SONY electret condenser mic I produced recordings of essentially the same quality as I got with my very much larger and very cheesily-made EDIROL R1 PRO at 3 times the price.

I purchased my ICDUX80 from Amazon. There were a lot of positive reviews for this product. I planned to use this recorder in my business and for a class I was taking at the time. Here is a list of the problems I had: 1) It uses 1 AAA battery. It only last a couple of hours at most. You need to keep changing batteries for long meetings. 2) This is my biggest problem. When recording where the sound level is low this recorder produces strange whistling sounds in the background of the recording. I recognized these sounds as MP3 recording artifacts from low quality recording. I thought the recorder was defective so I called Sony Support. The guy I talked to agreed and I sent it in for repair. However they sent it back and it had the same problem. I really don't think they did any repair at all. In the end I just sold the one I had on eBay to get rid of it. I felt as though I had been ripped-off given how much this unit cost. I am eventually going to replace this unit, but at this point I don't know what I will get.

This Sony recorder is what I had been hoping for. I use it for recording my evening classes, two hours at a shot. The format is .mp3, so that Windows Media Player immediately starts playback with a mouse click, with no format conversion. The built-in USB connection makes it seem like a flash drive. The stereo sound is excellent. It uses a single AAA battery, rechargeable in my case. The control buttons are spread out, not "multi-tasked". The display is small, but still easy to interpret. The drag-and-drop provides a familiar way to copy or move the recorded files onto my computer.

The ICD-UX80 I have is great. The others have mentioned recording quality. It records at 192kbps in top quality. The mics work fine for me, except in the wind . . .

The drawbacks, though:
1) the buttons get pressed easily while in my bag. This records bag noise for hours . . . or plays nothing for hours . . . Either way, it does run the battery down often requiring a reset of the date and time when a new battery is installed. (You do have time to change batteries normally without losing date and settings, but this isn't the case when the unit has no battery capacity for hours . . .) It really needs a case.
2) The record button is just as small as the other buttons; it is also almost the same size as the adjacent round speaker casing. An oversized record button would make it easier to start without looking . . .

UPDATE: The battery life. I got a case for this to protect it from being activated in my bag, and now I can see another problem. It eats batteries even while it's turned off. Every time I take it out to record after having sat unused in my bag for a few weeks, and the battery is totally spent. it is hard to understand why the clock would draw so much power. Something is wrong with the design.

I practice law and had tried digital recording with the older Olympus DSS 30. I liked digital but it really was not versatile enough (format, etc). I relied mainly on mini-cassette dictation but needed a better system without spending 300-400 + on a system. I also use "Dragon Naturally Speaking" and after some research decided to try the Sony UX 70 (a lighter version of the UX 80). What I discovered was that MP3 based dictation answered all of my needs - dictation, conference recording, hearing recording (including hearings where a witness was testifying over a speakerphone). The MP3 format is universal. I also purchased the Sony foot pedal with digital voice editor software. I can send this stuff by e-mail or by "CITRIX" based file transfer programs ([...]). I can also use the recorder as a "flash drive" and transport word, excel, etc. Also photos and anything else you would put on a flash drive. The small speaker on the recorder is not really loud but I assume that it is meant to hold up to your ear so that you can "discretely" listen to what you have dictated. With earphones, the sound of music is good. I paid about $[...] for mine and it does everything that a system costing several hundred does. I know, because I have tried them.

As I said below the ICDUX80 is discontinued by Sony. They have an improved model ICDUX81 which has better battery life and added functions.
Model ICDUX81F has FM Tuner as well. Check these new Models before going for the older model.
I wanted stereo MP3 recorder for recording live music and recording my own practice music when I am playing myself. It records very well with internal microphones. Recording is slightly better for low frequencies if I record with external stereo microphone SONY ECM-DS30P ($49.99). It records even better if you directly feed audio in to microphone input and selecting it as "LINE IN" using Audio Line Out of other system.
I am all happy with this device. I purchased it from "SONY STYLE" store for $99.97. I was surprised by this price as compared to what I have seen on the Internet. I purchased two of the ICD-UX80. One to give as a gift to a music lover friend of mine. Store salesman told me that this product is being obsoleted, anything in the store with the price ending with xx.X7 is obsoleted. If the price ends with xx.x9 then it is a current production item. Don't be fooled by the sticker price on the box. Ask salesman to check the price on the cash register using barcode. Anyway I wanted it so I purchased it and I am glad I did. May be SONY is comming up with a better new model than this one, soon.
Although it can safely record 2 hours of stereo music at 192Kb/sec on a fresh AAA alkaline battery I wish SONY had designed it for AA alkaline battery which has two and half times more energy than AAA and would have given recording time of more that 5 hours on one stretch. I hope they design their new model using AA batteries. So what if it gets little bigger/thicker in size. It is too small to begin with. A slightly larger model will also have better performance built-in microphones like they have on other models.

I bought this device primarily for use with Dragon Naturally Speaking Nine Preferred, with which it works quite well.

I was pleasantly surprised, no, make that astounded, at how well it records live music.

The only shortcoming I've found is that battery life isn't nearly as long as advertised, but I would have bought it anyway had I known.

It's hard to believe that something this small could produce such big results.

Contrary to the information in the user's manual on Sony's website as of this writing, the device does NOT charge rechargeable batteries through the USB connection. Apparently, this feature has been disabled; the user's manual supplied with the unit has had all mention of recharging deleted. So you are stuck either replacing batteries frequently or using an external charger (the non-rechargeable AAA battery supplied by Sony lasted about two weeks with very little use).

If you plan to use this device as a music player, or if you want to organize your recordings on the device, you should know that browsing by subfolders is not possible. For example, if you create folders of artist names, and if within each artist folder you create folders of album titles (into which you copy the mp3 song files), you will not see the artist folders when browsing -- you will only see the album title folders. This is the intended behavior, as confirmed by Sony technical support. Even though the directory structure (up to 4 levels) exists on the device, you are not allowed to see it or navigate it from the user interface; you only see one long list of folders.

Other gripes: takes too long to start recording (about 2 seconds); no automatic gain control setting; limited to 5 folders for recordings made using the device (and each of those folders can hold only 99 files -- could be a problem if you record frequent notes); no PCM recording; inability to browse or change settings while playing; firmware cannot be upgraded.

These deficiencies are disappointing since otherwise this unit could be a fantastic little recorder with its stereo mp3 capability and neat form factor.

I use this recorder for interviews, and the recorder sits on a table or desk between the person I'm interviewing and me. I find the built-in microphone adequately sensitive. Before the first interview use, I tested it out in my large living room, walking around and back and forth from close to far. I don't whisper but I don't have a really loud voice, and everything I said everywhere was audible. In fact, with the microphone set on high sensitivity, it was TOO sensitive; set on low, it's just right. Moving the files from the device to the computer is simple drag and drop, and the built-in USB connector is a huge plus.

The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is (1) the LCD is very small and hard to see, and (2) it's not instant-on, it takes a few seconds to boot up. Both are minor inconveniences.

To the reviewers who complain of:

Battery life: Remember to set the "hold" button before putting it away. And I carry a couple of extra AAA batteries -- it's not like they are heavy!

Buttons get pressed and turned on in a bag, so battery drains: See previous suggestion.

Difficulty of arranging albums when using the device as a player: It's a recorder, for heaven's sake. If that's what you want to do, get an MP3 player.

Sound barely audible without headphones or speakers: It's not intended to be a player. Earbuds were supplied (crappy as they are). Use a decent set of headphones or auxiliary speakers. But why would you want to be listening on the recorder, other than as a quick check? Isn't the point to put the files on your computer and from there burn them to a CD or transfer them to an MP3 player (which, by the way, one listens to with headphones of some sort anyway).