Digital Voice Recorders - Choosing the Right Model

A digital voice recorder is an indispensable tool for any business, whether the need is to dictate memos or letters or record conferences, meetings, lectures or interviews. The modern digital voice recorder is light, compact, and capable of recording hundreds and even thousands of hours of quality audio that is transferred easily to a computer via a USB connection.

When choosing a digital voice recorder you need to evaluate your needs and select a gadget that fulfills those needs. So lets get clear on what those needs could be.

One of the first things to think about is whether a dedicated voice recorder is an essential requirement - the majority of high-end tablets/smartphones feature apps we can use for transcription and digital voice recording. For example, the iPhone 4S and subsequent models feature text to speech dictation via the cloud. If your recording requirements, however, are occasional then an app for your smartphone will be sufficient.

For more intensive digital voice recorder requirements, a dedicated device is going to possess the following benefits.

1. Greater Battery Life - A number of digital voice recorders feature a 48 hour battery life or more. Additionally, some devices use regular batteries, making it easy to have spares on hand.

2. Ease of use - One-press record/stop/pause/play function makes for easy use of a dedicated device.

3. Advanced features - variable-speed playback, voice activation and track-marking are just some benefits.

4. Sound Quality - Probably the number one key feature of owning a dedicated digital voice recorder (like the LS-100 by Olympus) is high quality audio recordings. High-end devices are in essence tiny recording studios, with the capacity to record concert-hall level quality utilizing high fidelity and directional microphones with stereo multi-track technology. The highest-end devices even feature triple microphones that record 3D sounds in addition to voice-over capabilities and built-in editing.

Recording Times

Amazingly, there are digital voice recorder models that boast upwards of 1000 hours of recording time! However, such numbers need to be taken lightly. The greater the recording quality the fewer overall hours that can be recorded. Should you want to use automatic voice recognition features for transcription, you're going to need the highest quality recording available. High-fidelity and stereo formats require considerable more storage, greatly reducing total recording times.

Also note that recording times are related directly to memory capacity. All recorded data is stored within the voice recorder's internal memory. So naturally the more innate memory the recorder comes with, the more memory you have to use. To increase memory storage times, most digital recorders features microSD slots where you can insert memory cards and thus greatly increase memory capacity.

Transcription

Should you need to transcribe any voice files that you recorded into text, you're going to need a specific style of software for this important task. Dragon Naturally Speaking is one of the best softwares for the job and is available for Windows and Mac. Some digital voice recorders actually come with their own proprietary voice recognition to text software, if not then keep in mind you will need to buy such software separately. If you are going to transcribe manually then headphones and foot pedals are going to be essential accessories too.

Weight and Size

Compact models are of similar size to your smartphone and can weigh just several ounces. High-end devices with added features are typically bigger and can weigh 8 ounces or above.

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