WS-200S Digital Audio Recorder
Today my Digital Audio Recorder came in the mail. It was still in its original packaging. It was a little smaller then I had thought and very light in its weight. I’m loving this new little device. Here are some initial observations that matter to me:
- Microphone Recording Quality
- Device Playback Quality
- Transfer Quality
- Transfer Speed
- Drag & Drop Files in Explorer
- Storage Capacity
- Easy to use in the dark
- Less work to do before posting as MP3 file
- No unnecessary software
The quality in both recording and playback on the device itself is great. Transferring to the computer was easy and fast over USB 2.0. Windows recognized it as a USB mass storage device without the need of any additional software.
Playback on the computer was great. There were not any scratching sounds or thwaps at all. This was a common problem on my old W-10 recorder. I no longer need to use Audacity to remove those annoying sounds. It’s a good thing to as Audacity doesn’t support the WMA format that it records in. I did find a small utility (called switch) to convert between many audio formats including MP3 and WMA. I even found out that it can convert to both CBR and VBR bitrates. This is something that I needed to have for a small project of mine for reading MP3 files.
The buttons are easier to get a handle on. I can sense where the record button is in the dark much easier. It also has a red LED that lights up to let me know that I’m recording. It has a longer rope on the end that I could let it hang from my neck. I usually just hang the old one on my bed post and fumble to unhook it before I start recording. This new one lets me record without taking it off the post. It also detatches with a quick release by squeezing a plastic piece together. Talk about convenience.
