Topic: Sony PCM-A10 (Part 2)

[morst]

Looking to pick one up and found a good price thru an Ebay vendor from China. The listing claims it is U.S. A Series.  Does anyone know if there have been different series of models and if there should be concerns with buying?

They all seem the same that I've noticed. Only one firmware version as well.

[dabbler]

I've had to do a hard reset (by holding the slider for 8s or more) a few more times.
In the past, it was only necessary to get Bluetooth working, but I've also had it ignore the input jack on one occasion.
Pulling the cable out and plugging it back in (while the A10 was unlocked) didn't work, only a hard reset allowed it to see a signal again.

I wonder if having the A10 connected to Bluetooth in my car before shows is part of the problem.
I think I'll leave it off in the car from now on, or do a hard reset after leaving the car.

The size is very nice for stealthing and long walks from/to parking, though.

[sos]

Don't know if anyone's encountered this, but I had my unit refuse to power up yesterday, no matter what. Wouldn't accept an attempt at charging, either. After a frantic Google search, I tried the suggested "simultaneously hold down the volume UP side of the tab, and move the power slider into the down ("power") position. The suggestion was to hold it this way for 2 minutes. After about a minute, I stopped, removed my fingers and... voila! It lit right up, and it's good as new. It did not appear that I'd allowed it to completely run out of juice as there were full bars showing. Was already exploring my $200+ options for a new one, as I can't live without one of these!

[rigpimp]

Don't know if anyone's encountered this, but I had my unit refuse to power up yesterday, no matter what. Wouldn't accept an attempt at charging, either. After a frantic Google search, I tried the suggested "simultaneously hold down the volume UP side of the tab, and move the power slider into the down ("power") position. The suggestion was to hold it this way for 2 minutes. After about a minute, I stopped, removed my fingers and... voila! It lit right up, and it's good as new. It did not appear that I'd allowed it to completely run out of juice as there were full bars showing. Was already exploring my $200+ options for a new one, as I can't live without one of these!

This is good to know and will make it onto a sticker for the back. I had this happen one time and my fix was to pull to the microSD card and it fired right up

[lmgbtapes]

If I have the 'one channel lower than the other line in' issue out of warranty, and I just screwed and have to buy a new one? Or any way to repair? I use one of my A10s for SBD captures, love the remote monitoring, but I've been having this issue intermittently. I have been able to just explode the tracks to mono and normalize and it hasn't resulted in too much loss, but it still sucks and I'm concerned it'll get worse :/

[nulldogmas]

If I have the 'one channel lower than the other line in' issue out of warranty, and I just screwed and have to buy a new one? Or any way to repair? I use one of my A10s for SBD captures, love the remote monitoring, but I've been having this issue intermittently. I have been able to just explode the tracks to mono and normalize and it hasn't resulted in too much loss, but it still sucks and I'm concerned it'll get worse :/

It's definitely not a problem of a battery box with a dying battery?

[lmgbtapes]

If I have the 'one channel lower than the other line in' issue out of warranty, and I just screwed and have to buy a new one? Or any way to repair? I use one of my A10s for SBD captures, love the remote monitoring, but I've been having this issue intermittently. I have been able to just explode the tracks to mono and normalize and it hasn't resulted in too much loss, but it still sucks and I'm concerned it'll get worse :/

It's definitely not a problem of a battery box with a dying battery?

No, this is just for SBD capture. Seen it at multiple venues, now.

[nulldogmas]

No, this is just for SBD capture. Seen it at multiple venues, now.

Weird. And you've tried swapping out the cables and it happens regardless? Any discernable pattern to when the problem recurs?

[guitard]

I just upgraded to the 13 Pro today and couldn't get my A10 to connect. I knew that I had read something on here about it and found the post. On the A10, I kept trying to add an Audio Device and nothing would work. After reading this post, I played with some settings and what did work for me was going into Bluetooth>REC Remote. There I saw my old device in the Manage Added Devices. I decided to try the Add Device (Pairing) from there and lo and behold, the bluetooth device was finally recognized on my phone and I'm all good to go. Now, I didn't look up the A10 directions, so maybe this is how it is supposed to be done anyway, but like I said, I was trying to pair the device from the Audio Device menu. Which was wrong.

Just thought I'd add to this.

IMPORTANT FOR iPHONE 13 USERS

I've had my A10 for one year and it's been my main recording deck since the day I got it (previous main deck was an Edirol R-07).  I used my iPhone 12 Pro Max when I first got the A10, and I've been loving the ease with which I can control the recording with an app on my phone.  A week ago, I got an iPhone 13 Pro Max (w/ 1TB storage).  And that's when this conundrum began ... no matter what I did, I could not get the iPhone 13 to recognize (and pair with) the A10.  I tried and tried and tried ... but no dice.  The only saving grace was that the iPhone 12 / A10 combo has always worked just fine, so I was still able to two shows last week while using the A10 app on my iPhone.  But I only have two weeks from receipt of the iPhone 13 to return the iPhone 12 and get the guaranteed refund for the trade-in.  I chatted with Apple support via text at their webpage ... not much help.  I drove over to a Best Buy and found a sharp young guy in the smart phone section and he actually gave it a really good effort (especially considering I didn't buy the phone or recorder from Best Buy so I was just a random guy walking in off the street asking for service).  After that, I finally decided I had to go big, so I made an appointment at the nearest Apple Store, which is an hour drive away.  I don't go there often, so I don't know what's normal, but I was seen after waiting 5 minutes or so.  The person who assisted me was a young lady named Grace, probably in her mid-late 20s.  She dove right into it - had my iPhone 12, iPhone 13 and A10 layed out along with a few other devices of her own and also had the A10 manual pulled up on her iPad.  For a good half hour she poked around through the iPhone menus, ran diagnostics, did various other testing, went to the backroom a couple of times ... but no bueno.  She called her boss Sasha over and he worked on it for five minutes or so.  He had some really insightful ideas for fixes ... but even he couldn't solve this.  Sasha got called away to another customer and Grace went back at it.  Around 45 minutes in - after reading parts of the A10 manual - Grace started taking a hard look at the menus in the A10; in particular, the Bluetooth menu.  And then she found something and BANG - just like that - problem solved.  So the smart thing for me at that point would have been to ask Grace exactly what she had just found that fixed the problem.  But I was super happy to finally get this saga done with and this was 50 minutes into the session; and I could tell Grace needed a break.  So I just thanked her and left.  Just as she was about to solve the problem, however, I do remember her saying she was looking at the bluetooth settings in the A10 and it looked like it was set to send data out to a device like a bluetooth speaker, as opposed to being set to receive data from a recording rig.  So after it was all said and done ... there is still that mystery out there ... if the bluetooth settings in the A10 were the problem (with the iPhone 13), for the last year, why (how?) did the A10 work just fine with the iPhone 12?  Grace was equally baffled by this question.

TL;DR:  If you upgrade an iPhone that works properly with the A10 app, but your new iPhone doesn't connect over bluetooth with the A10 app, the solution is probably in the A10's bluetooth menu.

I just went through this nutroll all over again after getting a second A10.  Thankfully, zeus163 included the little snippet about going to the "Bluetooth>REC Remote" part of the menu.

[lmgbtapes]

No, this is just for SBD capture. Seen it at multiple venues, now.

Weird. And you've tried swapping out the cables and it happens regardless? Any discernable pattern to when the problem recurs?

I got some new cables upon this last instance just incase.. will have to test further, no rhyme or reason that I can discern. It's really weird, I recorded the same band 4 shows in a row, used the same A10 for each SBD patch, only had it occur once. Told the engineer what I was seeing and he insisted the issue was on my end... I'd be apt to chalk it up to a fader mistake if I hadn't seen it a few other times, now, and seen the other reports here.

Will try to test further with my own sources. 

[vanark]

Is there any chance the cable wasn't fully inserted?

[taperwheeler]

Came across these discount prices on the A10, thought I 'd share.  https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sony-PCM-A10-Voice-recorder-16-GB/377393818?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=4831&adid=22222222222331530517_1190771651894097_pla&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=e&wl1=o&wl2=c&wl3=74423320344013&wl4=pla-4578022862416509:aud-807612879&wl5=&wl6=&wl7=&wl10=Walmart&wl11=Online&wl12=377393818_10000004877&wl14=sony%20pcm%20a10&veh=sem&gclid=9b28c314aa5d1f713522a6df07a66f40&gclsrc=3p.ds&msclkid=9b28c314aa5d1f713522a6df07a66f40

And...

https://www.thetedstore.com/products/sny-pcm-a10-us?msclkid=95b625fb0c4f193e3a6f4030a4f73163

[Niels]

Looking to pick one up and found a good price thru an Ebay vendor from China. The listing claims it is U.S. A Series.  Does anyone know if there have been different series of models and if there should be concerns with buying?

Make absolutely sure it is an international model. The Japanese market models are hardware locked to Japanese and can not be changed.

[morst]

Looking to pick one up and found a good price thru an Ebay vendor from China. The listing claims it is U.S. A Series.  Does anyone know if there have been different series of models and if there should be concerns with buying?

Make absolutely sure it is an international model. The Japanese market models are hardware locked to Japanese and can not be changed.

...although the international ones work great, and Google Translate's camera function is effective!
 


edit =  oops I was thinking of my japanese PCM-M10, totally different deck.

[guitard]

Looking to pick one up and found a good price thru an Ebay vendor from China. The listing claims it is U.S. A Series.  Does anyone know if there have been different series of models and if there should be concerns with buying?

Make absolutely sure it is an international model. The Japanese market models are hardware locked to Japanese and can not be changed.

...although the international ones work great, and Google Translate's camera function is effective!
 

I would imagine most folks are like me?  Once I got ALL the basic settings (Limiter, date & time, bluetooth, etc.) all set up, I pretty much don't look at them for several months at a time; maybe not for years at a time.  For sure, getting that all sorted out with a Japanese menu would be a bit of a pain.  But once you got all that stuff locked in, the only adjustment you really have to worry about is the input level.  You should be able to easily control that from the app though.

So, I'm very much inclined to agree with you.