Olympus WS-311M Digital Voice Recorder and WMA Music Player

This recorder is perfect for journalists and researchers who do interviews. I just "field tested" this recorder in Italy, where I did 20 interviews and was highly pleased. The machine is unobtrusive, easy to use, and gives excellent stereo sound quality. A handy feature is that one can easily download recorded files onto your computer by plugging the recorder directly into a USB port. It goes long on just one AAA battery and can hold more than 100 hours of recorded sound. This is the field recording device I've been waiting for.

I actually bought this for my daughter, who is a detective. She loved it. Received an excellent product at a good price, combined with great service. Very pleased.

My thanks to amazon.com and all who posted about this product. It was largely due to the reviews that I read that I went with the WS-311M when I found it on clearance at Best Buy for $61.99. I just got it yesterday so I'm only writing after my initial experience with it but so far, so good. I haven't looked at the manual yet. I've made 2 recordings with it. It's very intuitive. I like the imaging with the stereo mic. I would be curious to know how much different/better the DS-40 would be for $35 more. The files effortlessly downloaded to my Mac desktop and sound fine for what they are - I don't think I would have had the same luck with the Sony ICD-* models under $100.

My main reason for purchase is to record song ideas as they come but since I just got it and was feeling a like a kid at Christmas, I thought I would bring it and play with it a little during a church service that I was at today. The recording turned out great for where it was. I put the WS-311M on top of the head of my amp, pointed it back toward myself and pushed record. I wanted to see what it would kind of audio it would capture. I paused it at one point where there was some talking by pressing the record button a second time. I pushed the record button again and the WS-311M continued to record in the same file as opposed to creating a new one.

I was standing at the front of a stage but with my guitar amp turned around and facing the back of the stage, toward the B3/keyboards and percussion player. My amp is mic'd and does not face out toward the audience. It is in front of me, right about where wedge monitor would be. I have an EAW wedge on my left with a lot of my vocals and some drums and piano coming thru for reference. The WS-311M picked up a good amount of electric guitar, both mine and the other guitar player. It captured a lot of ambiance, but in a good way. It sounded pretty cool. Not a lot of bass came through. Between the sound echoing from the Front Of House P.A. (the speakers that the audience hears) and the mix in my own wedge, I could hear a good mix of vocals, drums, piano, percussion and guitars.

The internal speaker on the WS-311M should not be used as a gauge of the sound quality. I listened back to the first set of songs on a pair Westone ES-3 IEM's (ear phones) and the second set of songs out of a low end desktop stereo system that had a sub. The Westone's sounded a lot better but both systems demonstrated that the WS-311M did an adequate job of capturing the ambient sounds of a band stage. The recording level was just at the default setting of the 2nd highest quality format called ST-HQ.

I think the WS-311M will be a good investment and would recommend it. My only complaint is the .wma format. It should be a more universal format like mp3.

I'm a photojournalist and had heard good things about the WS-3** line of recorders for audio slideshows. Very much not so. The internal mic is fine for dictation and conference calls but leaves much to be desired for anything even close to what's required for slideshows and online media. Terrible background noise turns a moderately quite coffee shop into a cacophony of sound.

I also tried using a Sony ECM-DS30p mic on the recorder and, although the sound quality is slightly better, the background noise just gets worse. The built in noise reduction turns voices and sounds tinny but does little to correct the issue with the dominating hiss. I've also tried a Sony ICD-UX80 which, while still having some hiss, is much much better with regards to background noise control and levels regulation.

I'll probably either go with a Sony or figure out a way to carry a larger, heavier but better sounding recorder.

Most of the Olympus audio products have lost quality since they abandoned the 240 series. By increasing the time in the voice recorders, the quality of the sound has deteriorated to the point where they can't be used for capturing real sounds. The distortion level is so terrible that even as voice recorders, they are garbled. Where as the VN 240 series was a great bargain, the later models are largely a waste of time for anyone interested in real sound.