Re: Comparison of the Olympus DS-71 and the DM-520: RE: Digitalrecordersagain - Plextalk Pocket and Olympus DS-71
Yes, there are voice prompts, if you turn them on, on the DM520. Listen to the review of that recorder on www.blindcooltech.com. - Original Message - From: tim isfe...@gmail.com To: PC Audio Discussion List pc-audio@pc-audio.org Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 6:38 PM Subject: Re: Comparison of the Olympus DS-71 and the DM-520: RE: Digitalrecordersagain - Plextalk Pocket and Olympus DS-71 hi, some one just sent me an email and this thing the dm520 has already been ordered!, they said the following. Thank you for your inquiry. The DS-71 come with a detachable stereo microphone that is quite strong and will do an excellent job of picking up sound in a large area. It has voice prompts to guide you through how to us it as well. This recorder comes with 4 GB of memory for recording. Your cost for this recorder is $229, includes UPS ground shipping. The DM-520 comes with 4 GB of internal and a card slot in the battery compartment that will hold a mini SD card. You may put up to 16 GB of memory in this recorder. The mikes on this recorder are built in and cannot be removed. However there is a mike jack that will allow you to add additional mikes if you need to. There are no voice prompts on this recorder to guide you through how to use it. Your cost for this recorder is $189, includes UPS ground shipping. - Original Message - From: Tim Noonan t...@timnoonan.com.au To: 'PC Audio Discussion List' pc-audio@pc-audio.org Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 21:28 Subject: Comparison of the Olympus DS-71 and the DM-520: RE: Digital recordersagain - Plextalk Pocket and Olympus DS-71 Ok, re the DS-71 and the DM-520, , it is actually a tricky decision on one hand, and a completely clear decision on the other. This is a very detailed post. I have both units - which I am happy about, because as a conference speaker, the DS-71 (like the DS-50) mic remote control and detachable mic option is perfect for capturing my presentations. I can wire myself up, and just flick the switch on the remote to start and stop recording - almost total reliability that record has activated. If, you have a DS-50, you can use its remote control and Mic with the DS-71. You can not, however, use the DS-50 or DS-71 remote control on the DM-520! The price I paid for the DS-71 was nearly double that of the DM-520, and in many ways the DS-71 is an inferior product, using an older generation of technology. I actually think someone stuffed up somewhere in releasing the DS-71 when they did, it feels like a legacy product that was very delayed to market. Still speaking about the DS-71, the recording quality is pretty good, and you do notice the Wave recording improvement over the DS50 and the WMA on the DS-71. However, it is not as good as the audio recording quality of the DM-520, and has more noise floor and Mic preamp noise (I think). In addition, the external stereo Microphone for the DS-71, though an improvement on the DS-50 mic is definitely inferior to the in-built stereo Mics of the DM-520, especially if you want to use any of the zoom recording modes that The DS-71 offers. I don't actually believe that they fully tuned the DS-71 mics for the Zoom technology. I would never use any of the zoom options on the DS-71, but I do use them for some situations (especially Narrow, and sometimes wide) on the DM-520. The narrow setting is good for keeping sounds localised, and the wide option is good for spreading the left right mike pickup to catch several speakers from a single location. If you want to hear how the DM-520 Narrow zoom mic setting works in open air situations, you can go to my CoffeeCast Conversations podcast at http://coffeecast.posterous.com Other advantages of the DS-71 are that it buffers key presses far better. For flipping back and forth between recordings in a folder, results are better. Also it doesn't exhibit the annoying audio click through the speaker when you move to different recordings. Both these problems with the DM-520 are bugs, and I do hope a firmware release will address them, as they do frustrate me, when using the DM-520 as a voice recorder. Also, it is necessary, occasionally, to reboot the DM-520 to fix an occasional bug where recording is flawed and choppy. This means that absolute trust of capturing a recording is somewhat compromised. Monitoring important recordings with earphones is therefore useful. I power the machine off, and back on prior to doing interviews, where I can't afford to lose quality of a recording. Finally, in complaint about the DM-520 is that I have stopped using the supplied rechargeable batteries, as they were dying unexpectedly, even when supposedly fully charged. I haven't had the time to fully track this problem down, or do charge discharge cycling to see if the problem goes away. Not a big problem for me, as I am happy to swap in regular AAA batteries before important recordings
RE: Comparison of the Olympus DS-71 and the DM-520: RE: Digitalrecordersagain - Plextalk Pocket and Olympus DS-71
The only reason you would go for the DS-71 over the DM520 is if you want to always use it as a personal voice recorder, or you like the wired remote control mic. It is fare as a sound effects recorder, great for in-door and out-door voice capture. A Pocket with quality external mics, or another higher grade recorder that isn't accessible will be better for full spectrum sound, but the DM-520 is actually pretty good and definitely the best all-rounder for its size. Tim -Original Message- From: pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org [mailto:pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org] On Behalf Of tim Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 2:56 PM To: PC Audio Discussion List Subject: Re: Comparison of the Olympus DS-71 and the DM-520: RE: Digitalrecordersagain - Plextalk Pocket and Olympus DS-71 cool now what about in my situation recording automobiles, people, indoors, outdoors etc will the dm520 be great for that? or is the ds71 a better option. think I have made my decition, but want to be sure before I move forward. thanks! much - Original Message - From: Tim Noonan t...@timnoonan.com.au To: 'PC Audio Discussion List' pc-audio@pc-audio.org Sent: Saturday, November 21, 2009 21:28 Subject: Comparison of the Olympus DS-71 and the DM-520: RE: Digital recordersagain - Plextalk Pocket and Olympus DS-71 Ok, re the DS-71 and the DM-520, , it is actually a tricky decision on one hand, and a completely clear decision on the other. This is a very detailed post. I have both units - which I am happy about, because as a conference speaker, the DS-71 (like the DS-50) mic remote control and detachable mic option is perfect for capturing my presentations. I can wire myself up, and just flick the switch on the remote to start and stop recording - almost total reliability that record has activated. If, you have a DS-50, you can use its remote control and Mic with the DS-71. You can not, however, use the DS-50 or DS-71 remote control on the DM-520! The price I paid for the DS-71 was nearly double that of the DM-520, and in many ways the DS-71 is an inferior product, using an older generation of technology. I actually think someone stuffed up somewhere in releasing the DS-71 when they did, it feels like a legacy product that was very delayed to market. Still speaking about the DS-71, the recording quality is pretty good, and you do notice the Wave recording improvement over the DS50 and the WMA on the DS-71. However, it is not as good as the audio recording quality of the DM-520, and has more noise floor and Mic preamp noise (I think). In addition, the external stereo Microphone for the DS-71, though an improvement on the DS-50 mic is definitely inferior to the in-built stereo Mics of the DM-520, especially if you want to use any of the zoom recording modes that The DS-71 offers. I don't actually believe that they fully tuned the DS-71 mics for the Zoom technology. I would never use any of the zoom options on the DS-71, but I do use them for some situations (especially Narrow, and sometimes wide) on the DM-520. The narrow setting is good for keeping sounds localised, and the wide option is good for spreading the left right mike pickup to catch several speakers from a single location. If you want to hear how the DM-520 Narrow zoom mic setting works in open air situations, you can go to my CoffeeCast Conversations podcast at http://coffeecast.posterous.com Other advantages of the DS-71 are that it buffers key presses far better. For flipping back and forth between recordings in a folder, results are better. Also it doesn't exhibit the annoying audio click through the speaker when you move to different recordings. Both these problems with the DM-520 are bugs, and I do hope a firmware release will address them, as they do frustrate me, when using the DM-520 as a voice recorder. Also, it is necessary, occasionally, to reboot the DM-520 to fix an occasional bug where recording is flawed and choppy. This means that absolute trust of capturing a recording is somewhat compromised. Monitoring important recordings with earphones is therefore useful. I power the machine off, and back on prior to doing interviews, where I can't afford to lose quality of a recording. Finally, in complaint about the DM-520 is that I have stopped using the supplied rechargeable batteries, as they were dying unexpectedly, even when supposedly fully charged. I haven't had the time to fully track this problem down, or do charge discharge cycling to see if the problem goes away. Not a big problem for me, as I am happy to swap in regular AAA batteries before important recordings. The other relatively minor advantage of the DS-71 is that its size is smaller than the DM-520 if you remove the stereo mic. They are equivalent sized, when the external mic is attached. I still love the audio quality of memos recorded with the in-built mono mic of the DS-71
