Topic: usnusual requirements field device

[Kevin T]

I need a few recorders for My wireless corporate Telecom day job. I'm assembling some rigs to inject and record cellphone mobile drive test speech wave files to gather end to end voice quality data. The players can be iPod type media players looping phonetically balanced "harvard Talkers". Then sent from 1/8 in. headphone out to Cellphone headset input. The recorders need to record low noise low distortion unconpressed PCM 200Khz to 4Khz recieved audio. The "far end recorder needs to have a voice activated / deactivated record feature. SD cards and or built in memory would be good and resonably Good battery life in the mobile unit.  I'm trying to avoid the low end dictation toys. Maybe the Olympia PCM or Sony ICD series. recorder Budget is ~ $300.

Thanks

Kevin T   

[sunjan]

I reckon the voice activation will be the feature that filters out most recorders we're used to.
You did your research already, Olympus LS-5/10/11 will fit the bill.
You might also take a look at Yamaha Pocketrak C24/W24 (sold as Sanyo ICR on certain overseas markets).

Sony ICD series will either fail on the SD card requirement, or the uncompressed WAV. The ICD-MX20 takes memory sticks, but records to lossy formats. The SX7xx/9xx series does WAV but lacks the card slot.

I guess the Olympus models are the ones that most here will vouch for. IIRC, the line in has a hardcoded bass roll-off, but that's no concern for your usage.
LS-10 is discontinued, LS-5 is branded for the EU market and not really available in the US, so LS-11 will probably be the easiest one to pick up. With 23h battery life, that should be plenty for you. Retails for $225.

[rjp]

I guess the Olympus models are the ones that most here will vouch for. IIRC, the line in has a hardcoded bass roll-off, but that's no concern for your usage.
LS-10 is discontinued, LS-5 is branded for the EU market and not really available in the US, so LS-11 will probably be the easiest one to pick up. With 23h battery life, that should be plenty for you. Retails for $225.

Note that the LS-10/11 bass roll-off is on the mic input, not the line input. Also, the LS-10 doesn't have voice activation.

[sunjan]

rjp is right, my bad! I realized that Olympus has different names for the same feature depending on model. Sometimes they call it Voice Activated Recording, sometimes Voice Sync. So LS-5 and LS-11 are the ones to look for.

Reading the OP's description, I'm not sure if his mobile phones put out line level or not. Maybe he'll have to feed the signal to the mic input and boost it?
Anyway, no big deal.

[flintstone]

Having used both LS-10 and LS-11, I can say that the bass roll-off of the mic preamp is much reduced on the LS-11.  And since it's a design feature rather than a recording artifact, you can easily and accurately boost bass in post if you desire.

[Kevin T]

Does the LS-11 record /stop and restart recordings  automatically?  Does the Zoom H2 (with newest SW) restart after a recording start/stop ? It appears to have this now?

[sunjan]

Does the LS-11 record /stop and restart recordings  automatically?

I'm doubtful whether it restarts. The manual is hazy, but I get the feeling it doesn't. Check p29:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/files/oima_cckb/LS-11_Instructions_EN.pdf

Any early adopter here to test if for you?
For H2, there are plenty of users on TS. You should be able to get this verified...