Customer Reviews

Sony TCM-210DV Standard Cassette Voice Recorder

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This is pretty much the perfect tape recorder for interviews, whether live or phone -- sturdy but light for carrying, with plenty of bells and whistles but a snap to learn to use. (However, inserting tapes is slightly harder than in some other machines.) You can choose slow-speed recording to double the length of your tape (e.g., get two hours of talk on a 60-minute tape), which minimizes interrupting the flow of the interview to change sides or tapes. On playback, a speed-control dial lets you control speed and tone of speech -- you can slow down a fast jabberer to transcribe, or speed up to chipmonk-voices past the less useful chatter without missing anything. Plugging in the adapter spares the batteries when transcribing, i.e. when hitting the "pause" button instead of "stop" for interruptions that last longer than anticipated. Sound quality is fine for talk. Not much machine-hiss, and even less on slow speed than on regular speed. Much easier to change batteries than on my previous tape recorder(another Sony which finally died after 25 years of service). Haven't tried this machine for music.

the 210DV is just the 200 DV with a power adapter and cassette tape included in the package. The power adapter is an additional $14.99 if sold separately, and the cassette costs maybe 50 cents, but if you want to save some money and can make use of the power adapter, this is a great buy!

This cassette recorder has great sound quality and easy functions. I would recommend this product to anyone who needs to record speeches, or music for practice and auditions, etc. This product replaced my old Sony tape recorder and I much prefer this new one. It is lightweight,too.

I researched many tape recorders before purchasing the Sony TCM-210DV. I needed it to take meeting minutes. I tried it out at two different locations and the hissing tape noise is so loud it overpowers the voices. Loud voices close by can be heard, but the noise is nerve-racking on playback. I tried two brands of tapes, thinking the one that came with the recorder might have been defective, but they had the same background hissing noise sound. Also, I thought I could use the cue for marking places while taping. Hmmmmm. I have a very old ordinary recorder that allows that function. Now, I don't know what to do. I have to take these minutes and am afraid to throw away more money on another bad recorder. I would like to get a refund, but don't know if it is possible.

For a sturdy full sized cassette recorder, look no further. This is a dependable and easy one to operate. I especially like the Double Record Time during seminars which allows your 90 minute tape to become like a 180 minute one and provide non-stop, all day recording without stopping during a speech to flip the tape over - possibly missing something important. I used it at a recent convention and it passed with flying colors.

In an age where cassette recording has become obsolete, this one works very well for documenting and archiving interviews and conversations. I am archiving conversation and "memories" from my 96 year old dad and find that its size and ease of use work very well for me.

The recorder operates well, but the hiss is more than I had expected. But perhaps others are as bad or worse.

This casssette recorder does seem to have a fair amount of background static, and yet it is much superior to what I last had. The sound quality, except for that background static, which is fairly easy to ignore, is excellent.

I record readings for a friend. This unit is such poor quality. The machine itself makes so much noise that when you try to play it back, you hear your voice only as a secondary sound. The main sound is just static. It is also packaged in a hard clam-shell package, which is not returnable after opening. So once you "try" it out, it's yours no matter what. The recorder is made in China, the cassette tape is made in Mexico, and the adapter is made in Thailand. Just cheap products that don't work. What a waste!

This recorder has almost everything you could want in a small unit. It has all the features: Large speaker, double record time, variable playback for transcription, VOR, size, ease of use, and good price. The only thing that is needed to make this a superlative machine would be a better microphone.