stealth field recorder......?

[John Willett]

For a small, affordable, high quality, portable - I am just about to go for the new Olympus LS-10.

The above links to the American site (which give a rotatable view) - the UK suite is HERE.

Very nice little beastie - and *metal* not plastic.

[any slash]

For a small, affordable, high quality, portable - I am just about to go for the new Olympus LS-10.

The above links to the American site (which give a rotatable view) - the UK suite is HERE.

Very nice little beastie - and *metal* not plastic.

i have seen that, and as handy as that is, it is well out of my price range at the mo'

for me it was always a toss up with second hand stuff or a zoom h2

okay, just as an update... not that i think you paaaaarticularly care too much 



just purchased an iriver h120... which i saw for a v. decent price, mostly because of the doubling up as an m3 player/ large storage device, stealth and the ability to add to it with battery boxes / pre-amps and all that jazz once i've figured out how ot use and what all that stuff is  !

just worried i may have made a wrnd decison considering my funds are low and i still need a mic

would a t-shaped mini mic be okay to use for field recordings whilst i sort my finances out (which could take a while)

are there any examples of a irver h120 with t-mic (no batter box/preamp...) to listen to?

as always any help is much appreciated


one day i'll be able to give some useful input in this forum, i swears

I don't think you will go wrong with the h120. I have had one for only a month now and love it!

I know from first hand experience that in order to use this recorder effectively, you have to turn the gain up quite a bit especially for very quiet situations. This only means that if you're trying to capture audio at a low setting, the pre amps in the recorder may introduce some noise. I have a cheap t mic that came with my minidisc recorder...I never thought to try it out on the h120, I think I will do that tonight. it is absolutely useless on the minidisc recorder since it records TOO well--you get a lot of the disc spinning up. I don't think this will be a problem with the h120, though.


If you don't know about the rockbox software for the h120, go check it out.

cheers, i do feel a bit more confident about my whimsical purchase now, and hopefully i will be able to upgrade my kit in the future

i am definitely reading up on the rockbox and have watched a handy video tutorial for installingit (on youtube) just preparing for when my shipment comes in

quite excited now, havent recorded something for ages

(i've been literally TAPING things on dictaphone and off the radio, which is still loads of fun)

[John Willett]

For a small, affordable, high quality, portable - I am just about to go for the new Olympus LS-10.

The above links to the American site (which give a rotatable view) - the UK suite is HERE.

Very nice little beastie - and *metal* not plastic.

i have seen that, and as handy as that is, it is well out of my price range at the mo'

Really?  I understood that it was a little over £200 street price (£270 retail) - I thought that pretty cheap.

[ambo]

Below is a quote from gutbucket here on gearslutz regarding Olympus LS-10. I'm not sure if he's referring to internal mics or not.

"Stay away from the Olympus if you intend to use it for music.  Very hissy and absolutely thin sounding. 

Plus its price of $399.00 is ridiculous.  If it was priced for $199.00, then it would be different.  Engineered  for doing interviews (ENG), capturing lectures, board meetings and such.  Capitalizing on their wildly popular cassette handheld recorders, Olympus is using its "name brand" recognition to draw in buyers.  So Buyer Beware.

The Olympus LS-10 is the weakest sounding in its market, IMO.  Makes the Zoom H2 sound like a baby SD 722 at twice the price.  Yikes!"

[spyder9]

The quote actually came from me, not gutbucket.  And I posted it on this website.  I stand by my opinion.  I was very disappointed with the Olympus sound quality and price.  Go to the wingfield audio website and check out the sound samples.  They have samples of all the handheld recorders.  Let your own ears be the judge.   

[any slash]

For a small, affordable, high quality, portable - I am just about to go for the new Olympus LS-10.

The above links to the American site (which give a rotatable view) - the UK suite is HERE.

Very nice little beastie - and *metal* not plastic.

i have seen that, and as handy as that is, it is well out of my price range at the mo'

Really?  I understood that it was a little over £200 street price (£270 retail) - I thought that pretty cheap.

unfortunately i have to ve very careful with my spending/saving at the moment and £270 is indeed out of my price range (god knows why i've decided to take uo such an expensive interest )

got my iriver for £90 including shipping, and hope to get some sort of cheap t-mic, or if failing that will use my Sony ECM MS907 which is around somewhere


tough budget i know, doesn't realy give me too many options

[seethreepo]

metal is not a stealthers friend. 

Plastic is better for some applications. 

just saying.

[melbourne83]

I've purchased my LS-10 via buy now on ebay.com for only $290 + $40 shipping to europe(fuck yes I saved 230 EUR by buying this baby from the states- they sell it here for 450eur...). I was thinking about buying the H120, but ebay only had used ones wich would sell for 150eur... as I wanted to buy a recorder for a long time, I decided to go for the LS-10, even though I only wanted to get the cheapest shit that records sound. the mics i bought were a bargain too. I havent tested the LS-10 on the filed but will have my chance for a test this weekend...

[sunjan]

just purchased an iriver h120... which i saw for a v. decent price, mostly because of the doubling up as an m3 player/ large storage device, stealth and the ability to add to it with battery boxes / pre-amps and all that jazz once i've figured out how ot use and what all that stuff is  !

just worried i may have made a wrnd decison considering my funds are low and i still need a mic

would a t-shaped mini mic be okay to use for field recordings whilst i sort my finances out (which could take a while)

are there any examples of a irver h120 with t-mic (no batter box/preamp...) to listen to?

I know from first hand experience that in order to use this recorder effectively, you have to turn the gain up quite a bit especially for very quiet situations. This only means that if you're trying to capture audio at a low setting, the pre amps in the recorder may introduce some noise. I have a cheap t mic that came with my minidisc recorder...I never thought to try it out on the h120, I think I will do that tonight. it is absolutely useless on the minidisc recorder since it records TOO well--you get a lot of the disc spinning up. I don't think this will be a problem with the h120, though.

If you don't know about the rockbox software for the h120, go check it out.

You won't get great results with a T-shaped mic on an Iriver! It will take up HDD noise. For half-decent results, you'd have to do the CF mod on the Iriver first. Even so, pretty much any handheld or tie-pin stereo mic would give you better results.

And of course Rockbox is a must. Welcome to Team Iriver!