Sturdy recorder for field interviews

Looking ahead to a year of being a student and part-time freelance writer, I anticipated a need for being able to record lectures and interviews in an inexpensive and convenient fashion.

The Olympus S713 is one of those classical microcassette recorders, the likes of which have been sold by photo and office equipment retailers for decades. Recently, however, the competition brought about by digital MP3 recorders has lowered the price of these gadgets to a level, where they are more or less available as a commodity.

Purchasing criteria
I must admit that for this particular purchasing decision I did not give much thought to the possible alternatives. Reconstructing the situation, I seem to have put an emphasis on the following criteria:

1) Must be a reputable brand
2) Must provide at least one hour of uninterrupted recording
3) Should be relatively inexpensive - less than 50$
4) Must be suitable for field use: Sturdy and not in danger of being stolen
5) Must provide interface for an external microphone

I was of course aware of the many digital alternatives being offered, but my impression is that these machines are primarily intended for personal time management and note-taking with a rather limited recording capacity and an emphasis on storing short messages for quick retrieval later. For this purpose I have my Palm organiser. My need was for an uncomplicated machine that would just sit around and record hours and hours of sequential lectures and interviews for later playback. Also, since I expected to travel a bit around the country with this machine in my bag, I did not want to constantly have to worry about losing a high-tech gadget, which would be expensive to replace.

However, I did have one non-negotiable requirement for my recorder. I needed it to be able to accommodate an external microphone. I have used dictation machines before, and have frequently found the built-in microphone to be very sensitive to background noise. Additionally, since as an interviewer you tend to keep the machine close to you in order that you may operate it and watch whether it is running out of tape, the microphone will have a difficult time in catching the voice of the interviewee and will frequently be disturbed by the sound of me banging away at the keyboard of my laptop. I therefore wanted to settle for a solution where I connected the recorder to an external microphone, which I had as a leftover from a previous desktop machine.

The local office equipment retailer had the Olympus S713 on sale. Unfortunately, he did not have any more machines in store when I came around looking to buy one. Well, he did have *one* left, but that had been used for in-store demonstrations. I did not mind purchasing this model as I had good faith in the reliability of Olympus machines, so I decided to purchase the demonstration model at a 10% percent discount, which enabled me to buy some extra tapes for the machine. The Olympus came with the tape that had been used for demonstrations, and I must admit I had somewhat of a laugh listening through the tape on coming home with the machine: The things that people will say, when they think that no-one is listening!

Features
Briefly put, the S713 offers the following features:
- Voice activated recording
- Volume control
- Interface for external microphone and earphones
- Fast forward and rewind with or without playback
- Two different recording qualities
- Tape counter
- Uses 2x1.5V AA batteries
- Interface for external power supply
- Comes with a small carrying case made of imitated leather
- Weight: 160 gram

The recorder in use
I was slightly disappointed to learn that the jacks for external microphone and earphones were of the micro variety thus requiring special adaptors to be of use with the standard earphones and microphones that you would use with walkmen or desktop computers. However, these adaptors were available at the local electronics store for around 7$.

The recording quality is sufficiently good to be of use for one-on-one interviews, and if you use the external microphone, it can be used for small seminars of up to around 30 people, if one speaker is the 'dominant' one. However, I found it to be of almost no use when trying to record lectures given in theatres of 100 - 200 persons. This may be due to the fact that I did not have the courage to go to the speaker and ask if I could place the recorder on his stand. This would be somewhat pointless anyway, as the lecturer typically speaks for two hours in a row, and the tape will usually only record for one hour before it needs to be reversed.

As already stated, the S713 does not support cue or index marks, and is thus not well suited for recording "small notes for yourself" during the course of a day of work. I find it more suited for uninterrupted recording of speeches or interviews for long stretches of time.

These minor disadvantages aside I have found the Olympus S713 to be good value for money in relation to the needs that I have as a graduate student and occasional travelling freelance writer.

Links

Specification sheet for Olympus voice recorders
http://cf.olympus-europa.com/consumer/voice/function/handhelds.cfm?id=J1

Opinion details
As epinions seem to not want to permanently record the information entered in the "Opinon details" section of this review, I have decided to enter the information here as well:

Amount paid: 38 USD
Portability: 4 - Good; mid-sized and functional when jostled
Sound: 2 - Poor; occasionally fuzzy, but suitable for am radio
Ease of use: 4 - Good; all features are easy to learn and apply
Battery life: 5 - Excellent; lasts 10 or more hours
Durability: 4 - Good; solid it will last until new technology develops