Olympus VN-702PC Voice Recorder

For years I have used an audio cassette recorder to record various programs from AM radio that I listen to later. This time of year it is typically baseball games, which often end later into the night than I care to stay up. So I decided to finally enter the 21st century and use a portable digital recorder to do the job. I was looking for several features: USB connectivity, external audio input, and either a timer to shut off of recording or a voice-actuated recording feature. The last feature is to stop the recording at some point so that I am not using up the memory recording stuff long after the desired program has finished. This recorder gives me all these features. I can use the USB connection to download an audio program easily if I wish to keep it or transfer it to another medium. I did need to do a bit a work to use the external audio input. My AM radio puts out "line level" audio, about 1 volt. The external audio input is for a microphone, which means that it is designed to accept audio at the level a several millivolts. I could not find an audio attenuator with the proper amount of attenuation at a reasonable price, so I built an attenuator cable with 40 dB of loss (reduces the audio signal voltage by a factor of 100). This is sufficient to satisfy the needs of the external microphone input. I then turned on the voice-actuated recording feature. I already have my AM radio (and audio cassette recorder) on a timer, so the audio shuts off at the time I set. When the audio stops, the recording stops. Note however that the VN-702PC does NOT shut off. It stays on, waiting indefinitely for audio to come back on again. Except for the drain on the batteries all night (though somewhat reduced in this standby mode), this is not a problem. And since I use rechargeable batteries, even this is not a problem. There are other features I like. The one that works well for recorded baseball games is the settable skip-ahead. The standard commercial break during a baseball game is 105 seconds. I set the skip-ahead to 30 seconds. Three pushes of the fast-forward button, and I am 90 seconds through the commercial break in no time. The extra 15 seconds are just about right--I need a bit of time to pull the recorder out of my pocket and get to the fast-forward button.

Love it!!!

I got better sound and functionality on an old VN-960PC (no longer available). I don't know why Olympus can't produce another recorder as good as that one. On this unit, Olympus decided to go for slimness, which translates into excessive length. Startup takes forever -- only a few seconds, but that can feel like a long time if you're wanting to capture a thought or sound immediately. Worse, if you've tried to start it by pressing Record, you're in for another surprise: it's still not recording, even after the startup delay is past. The display has lots of information, but it also means lots of space to be scratched. It's hard to operate by feel -- you have to look at it to be sure it is doing what you want. The folder button is easily triggered in my pocket: I suddenly find I'm dictating into some other folder. There's no flashing light to indicate the recording has been paused. Since you can't tell what is happening either by touch or by the available lights, I would have liked to see something like the Timex Indiglo option, so that I could read it in the dark. It could have had more options for date and time display (e.g., current time) and font size. Relatively poor sound pickup -- it loses sounds that some older models would catch. Poor speaker quality. Playback circuit appears incapable of handling the 192kbps recording rate -- sound is very quiet, and it breaks up on playback. There seems to be an emphasis on absurdly long recording capabilities (e.g., 91 hours) at the expense of other features. The Pause button leaves an audible click every time you hit it. I would have liked an easy way to append additional notes to a previous recording.On the positive side, the file review capability is much improved over some previous models. I like that the file creation time is visible in Windows Explorer. The option of using flash memory cards is helpful. The battery meter is improved.