Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'm amending my initial review -- I decided to keep the DM-520 after all because of its outstanding features when used as Olympus intends it to be used. (I've been using the DM-520 for about a month.)
Initially I'd planned to use this recorder for dictation -- but, that's not it's intended market. It really is meant to be a recorder for music (live performance, vocals, instrument practice, etc.). I've been using it to record guitar lessons with my instructor, and I love it for that purpose. In this context, I set up the recorder at the beginning of the lesson and stop recording at the end of the hour lesson. Playback is phenomenal -- I'm using WMA "SP" mode and the sound is great. The 8 gig Micro-SDHC card I put in has almost 1,000 hours of storage using the WMA SP format (less capacity, of course, when recording in stereo and "high quality" modes).
I would not,however, use this recorder for dictation, which was my original intent. I'm very impressed with the ergonomics and options, but disappointed in the absence of a couple of features that are critical to dictation.
I've owned several Olympus recorders, and except for the lowest priced models, they have all featured the ability to "punch in" new material in the middle of an existing recording. This feature is very important to my work as a writer. I use a recorder to take notes, and, while reviewing the notes at a later time, I need to be able to expand on the original thoughts and observations by inserting into an existing recording. I also need to be able to append to the end of an existing recording so that an entire article or chapter is one continuous file. The DM-520 can't do any of this!
My Olympus DS-2400 does this perfectly -- you just press the F1 key during playback and the recorder stops playback and lets you press the Record button to insert a new segment. Also, you can choose to playback up to a point midway in a recording, and record over the remainder of the recording, or, you can just add to the end of a recording.
I've come to accept these features as a requirement of any dictation recorder. I don't use my inexpensive recorders (like my WS-200S) for "work" because they all start a new recording as soon as the Record button is pressed. You can't add to an existing recording, insert into an existing recording, or overwrite an existing recording. So, you end up with a bunch of chopped-up, disconnected recordings that you have to sort out later on.
After a few weeks using this recorder, I can recommend it for the purposes for which it was designed: "field" recording, music playback, and other purposes where dictation features are not important.
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Product Description:
Maybe we should have called it the Ultra recorder. Ultra-long memory, ultra sensitive microphone, ultra useful features, ultra sleek… The DM-520 provides more than a thousand hours of recording with 4GB of internal memory and state-of-the-art capabilities such as file move, file copy, sound editing and multi-format recording.
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