Sony ICD-U70 (1024 MB, 502.5 Hours) Handheld Digital Voice Recorder

I bought this recorder because of its design, capacity and brand name.

The problem is the sound. Its bad. I know because I had an olympus WS-320M before. And the quality of sound is much better in this recorder. The difference was huge. And the Olympus recorder is even smaller (lighter). For my use, that is recording lectures in a big auditorium, the ony recorder is simply not good enough.

This a partly a mystery to me. Sony have made sound for a long time and should have no problems this field.

Maybe its because Sony seems to use a very low sampling frequency compared to Olympus recorder. Also in the highest quality setting.

Personally I consider this recorder a very bad product, especially considering
1)the reputation of the Sony name, one should be able to trust Sony
2)because it is sold as new model and
3)because it is sold as at voice recorder with a mp3 player and not as a mp3 player with voice recorder.

Maybe five years ago the sony recorder would have been a nice product, but not now. The quality of this product (sound key factor) is simply bad.