Olympus Digital Voice Recorder DM-420

This is an AWESOME voice recorder. I've been using this now for several years of lectures and I would buy it again in a heartbeat.Get this. period.Ok. where to start? this picks up the lecture voice clearly in rooms of different types (labs, lecture halls, small rooms, large rooms, etc). the sound quality is excellent. you can set many features on this (might be a bit daunting to set up at first, but play with it and it will become clear quickly what setting you need for it to be optimized for your needs). I think the different setting options is why it is so good in so many different acoustic settings. you can set it to record the whole group in a conference, a single person dictation, or to emphasize a particular person in a group when everyone else is yakking away out of sequence. it can focus on what you want and not have major distortion or be overwhelmed by say, a low background noise of an air conditioner vent or equipment nearby or have group conversation muddle out what's being said. Olympus knows their stuff here and did this right. I have mine set to get the instructor clearly (male or female, both sound clear and loud) but I can also hear questions from the back of the room with certain settings. simply amazing.the battery life is great. I record for about 6 hours a day and then play back while driving or studying. the battery is good for at least 3 or 4 days, but I do my best to keep it charged because the information is critical, so I prob could go longer on it but I don't. you can use the internal memory, but I just bought a micro sd card and it holds weeks of lectures at least (I don't think ive ever filled it up actually, but its nice to know I won't). every few days I just plug it n via the micro usb to usb cable to my laptop, and download the files to the Olympus software. I have mine set for mp3 format, but you can do wav and a few others if you want. it has a setting so you can just plug it in via usb (to a laptop or wall usb outlet thingy) to charge or have it charge while you file transfer. the rechargeable battery does last a long time, but you can also swap it out for a standard battery if you forgot to charge it and it ran out. no biggie.playback is great. I can have many different levels of speed adjustment to hear lecture playbacks quickly but still be understandable. I haven't used the podcast feature, no idea on that one. its got stereo recording (you can set to mono) and playback, and is fully compatible with external microphones and mp3 player type earbuds. I sometimes playback on the speaker, but usually listen via headset or run it through my car speakers while driving via the headphone out port.the folders, file names, etc are very customizable which is great, so I can quickly access whichever folder or lecture and keep my files stored in that section.I really got this for the sound quality. it is exceptional. the clarity is amazing. I've shown friends with hearing issues or attention/memory issues this and they get one themselves and agree its just a great tool to have so if they miss part of a lecture its all within easy playback. I've even burned cds for people who miss class or put the file on a flashdrive so they can hear the lecture they missed, and they are amazed at the sound quality of it. ***this puts other voice recorders to shame!*** they all say' wow! mine doesn't sound like that. I can barely hear mine when I play it. I can actually hear and understand what they're saying on yours.' point is, its worth the money to get something that actually works and works extremely well.not sure what else to say. just if you get this you won't go wrong. oh, I know, when I first got this as a test for it I turned it on in one corner of a room and talked at normal voice and walked around and left the room and went into other rooms across a house and could STILL hear my own voice clearly. I figured I would just find where it cut out---but it clearly picked up the sound everywhere I went. that is amazing.if you've got one and you're having any trouble at all I would say take a look at the settings because it gives you a lot of options - but it also has a lot of 'preset settings' to make it easy for you to just pick one or another if you don't want to figure out what you need. then you can go back and fine tune that preset to bring out say, the speakers voice, or the group speaking or block out low level vibration noise that may be drowning out other sounds or whatever. so you have a lot of control, but they also help you use them and take advantage of them even if all the options are too much to figure out (presets, use the presets, and then tweak them a bit if you want to).this is the higher end model (an older version now) and I also have a lower end model as a backup (I left this once in a lecture hall n didn't get it back for a few days). the lower end models don't have as many features. this has the absolute best sound quality also. the other model I have has the usb port that you slide in and out of the unit to plug it in, and after using both I have to say I really prefer just plugging in a usb cable, tho they both work fine.

I needed this primarily for recording personal coaching sessions both in person and on the phone. I wanted a stereo recorder that saved files in a non-proprietary format such as WMA or MP3, and I needed it to run on an external AC power supply as well as on batteries. This is one of very few recorders that meets those requirements.At first I was disappointed because, out of the box, you cannot make recordings while it's plugged in to the power supply. The default configuration assumes that when the USB connector is plugged in to the power supply, you are really doing file transfer rather than recording. In this respect, my old Olympus DS-40 is better, because the external power supply connects to a mini power jack that is separate from the USB port. Another non-intuitive difficulty I encountered in using the power supply is that it will NOT recharge the internal batteries unless you hold the "STOP" button down while plugging in the power supply.It takes some digging through the PDF manual hidden in one of the recorders file folders to discover the "USB Connect" configuration settings, where I was able to change the configuration to ask on startup whether I was charging the device in PC mode or in recorder mode. The quick start printed manual does not contain that information. Frankly, I prefer the intuitive simplicity of the separate power connector on the old DS-40. Also, the DM-420 manual says you cannot leave regular alkaline batteries in place while running the recorder on the power supply, and yet the power supply does not work if the batteries are removed. My old DS-40 can run on the power supply with batteries removed, and it doesn't care if the batteries are regular or rechargeable because it's not trying to recharge them. So, having the capability of recharging batteries inside the DM-420 is a mixed blessing. Because I use the recorder in my office always connected to the power supply, I've almost eliminated my contribution of dead batteries to the environment.Over all, the operation of the external power supply in simply recharging batteries, or making recordings while on the power supply, or operating as a replacement for completely dead or missing batteries, or recharging the batteries while connected to the PC via the USB cable and transferring recordings, is very non-intuitive and requires careful reading of the manual. It shouldn't be this difficult, because my HTC smart phone, which I also use as a recording and playback device, is completely transparent to use of the external power supply/charger which also connects via the USB port.My use of the recorder is not completely restricted to the office. I carry it to the gym, on walks and on the airplane in order to listen to music and books on tape. With the microSD card slot, I can carry hundreds of hours of audio.The quality of audio from WMA and MP3 music files that I copied to the device are excellent, and the stereo recordings I've made in the office are excellent (using two separate left/right microphones connected via a stereo-to-mono Y splitter). Recordings made from the phone are monophonic, but also quite clear, being limited by the phone line quality not the recorder.I strongly advise any purchasers of this device to at least skim through the detailed (128 page) PDF manual that's hidden in a folder on the recorder itself. The recorder can be highly configured to a wide variety of different recording and playback possibilities, and if you don't read the manual, you will definitely be missing out on a lot of possibilities. I copied the PDF file to my PC and printed the whole thing out using the duplex and 2-up paper saver settings on my printer - it was well worth the effort, and only cost 32 sheets of paper.By the way, the external AC power supply/charger (Olympus A514) is NOT included with the DM-420 recorder being reviewed here. You must order it separately. Otherwise, you are limited to recharging the batteries of the DM-420 by plugging it into the USB port of a computer.In conclusion, I think this is a great little recording and playback device, in spite of the faults found in its user interface. The complex user interface conceals a great degree of flexible configurability, accessible only by careful reading of both the quick-start and hidden manuals. If you are one of those folks who never read the owner's manual, I'd hesitate to recommend this device to you.Amendment:Some folks have complained that when they use drag and drop to copy music to the recorder, they cannot find and play it on the recorder. If you have a microSD memory card in the recorder, you may have copied music to the microSD card but the recorder is still looking only at the built-in memory. I made a lengthy comment on Dr. Jerry Stettheimer's review in which I describe the procedure for switching your recorder from the built-in memory to the microSD memory.I've been using the recorder for 12 1/2 months now, no problems. I must say again - reading the manual is VERY important to get the most out of this device. The BIG, DETAILED COMPREHENSIVE manual (128 pages) is concealed as a PDF in a folder in the built-in memory named OL_MANUAL. You will need to copy that into your computer and use Adobe to open and read it. The printed "quick start" introduces you to about 10% of the capabilities of this recorder. If all you read is the quick start brochure, you might as well have bought an old cassette recorder.

Great system in place and so glad to have it for many opportunities to record and relisten...so many great features.