Flash MP3 recorder: Best recording?

[bangraman]

I've been patiently waiting for Apple to make some kind of announcement on voice recorder compatibility with the iPod Mini because since I gave away my 3G (and I'm now waiting for non-4G players), I've been missing that functionality.


I thought about the Zen Micro and Carbon, but they don't have iTunes nor two-way sync which is to me a huge advantage given the size of my music library. I have Hi-MD, but it is and will continue be a relative hassle to upload and encode... and besides, it's too big to carry about in addition to the Mini.


Which leaves me with a flash player as an option. I'm looking for something with a built-in mic as well as external audio inputs, which will encode 64K~128K MP3's as cleanly as possible, prefereably work off AAA's, the ability to delete recordings on the fly and have drag & drop take-off of audio files from the machine. 256MB should be enough at those bitrates. It's very unlikely I'll be using it as a player so playback features / quality isn't as important.


Recommendations? Thanks

 

[akio]

iaudio u2 @ 256 is $200. runs off of a li-ion battery though, for about 20 hours. has built in mic.

http://eng.iaudio.com/zeroboard/zboa...=23080&bmenu=B

just an idea about a player that i've read up on (as much as can be done at this point) and recently purchased. i will be using it as something of a voice-memo recorder, among other things. hopefully it works out

the 300 or the iaudio4 might appeal to you more, i'm not sure of their relative recording abilities though.

a ton of the iriver flash players also look promising in the voice recording area, but they're all too similar to each other for me to figure out which is which.

 

[bangraman]

I've been having a look. Anyone have voice record experiences with the MSI Mega Stick 2?

 

[Big D]

This seems a pretty good deal at advancedmp3players.

The WIGO CVM100 256Mb is only £99 and includes voice recording. Seen some good comments about it and it is a bargain compared to the other 256Mb flash players. Probably worth a look.

 

[Fish Tank X]

The best dedicated voice recorders are from the pogo ripflash series.

I'm not sure how easy it is ito get one near the UK, but they have built in mic and speaker. And inputs for mic in as well as line in, and good AGC. Get it!

 

[leon]

Earlier this year I got the iAudio 4, because it records to MP3 in a variety of bitrates. It supports 32-128kbps mono from the built-in mic, and 32-64 mono, 80-128 stereo from the line in(*). That's cool because as you know, many MP3 players only record to wav with a low sampling rate.

According to this AV Watch review, the new U2 only records in 96/112/128 (mono and stereo respectively), and it doesn't use AAAs.

I thought recording quality on the iAudio 4 is fine, but a disclaimer -- I'm not obsessive about that and it's hard to make comparisons. Adjusting rec level is not as WYSIWYG as MD portables - part of the experience is missing (**) - but it's fully adjustable. The other main shortcoming is the battery meter, it's not very reliable. I left the back lid off because I was always changing the battery.

** I think it gives you the meter but you can't monitor the input until recording begins. Sorry I can't remember exactly, because I had to sell it off for financial reasons

 

[akio]

i'm not quite sure what you'll be recording, so this may not apply. i've used my iaudio u2 in lecture for the past two days. i sat about 50% of the way back in a classroom that seats about 150, so a good distance away. i set the level at 7 (default i believe) and just sat it on the desk next to me and recorded at 128/mono. it was a bit quiet, i had to listen at about 25/40 instead of my usual 19/40 on the volume dial. i don't think that the U2 would be any good for live music recording though, it would be too much of a pain in the ass to aim the mic in the right direction all the time.

i also picked up a significant amount of background noise, such as pages turning, pens and pencils dropping, giggling, etc. however, the professor's voice was always audible (i can now go back and type out his lectures without struggling).

-brian