Olympus LS-10 portable hi-fi recorder

Most portable recording devices leave quite a bit to be desired in the sound quality department, but that's exactly where the Olympus LS-10 is meant to shine. The little aluminum unit records uncompressed 24 bit / 96kHz audio straight to your SD or SDHC card of choice, or the built-in 2GB of internal storage, in your choice of WAV, MP3 or WMA formats. Similar to Sony's PCM-D1, the LS-10 features stereo microphones for giving your bootleg recordings that added touch of realism, and there are built-in stereo speakers for previewing your audio. There's also a 1.8-inch LCD for shuffling through the options and the unit promises 12 hours of recording battery life. The recorder should be out this month, and retails for about $399.

[Thanks, Colin]

[Digicat @ Mar 3rd 2008 9:22AM]

The Olympus LS-10 sounds like a very nice little "pocket studio" recorder - but having skimmed over the LS-10's .pdf manual, there were a couple features I didn't see included, that would have been nice. One, was that it doesn't seem to have a timer-recording mode, where you can "set & forget" the device. My cheepo $90 dollar DS-30 has this available to it, and I love the feature - If I can't actually BE at a lecture, or a recording session, I CAN pass it over to a friend who doesn't even know how to work the thing, and just have them put it in front of them - the DS-30 does the rest. All I have to do is just pre-program the recording settings and start/stop times.

The other things was, if I'm correct in how the manual was explaining it, there is no quick one-touch recording method. By that, I mean you have to first press the Rec button, then you adjust a few setings, then you again press the Rec button to actually begin recording. It would have been nice if you could record in a mode, where you have already pre-determined settings (say, for interviews or dictation) and you simply press the Rec button. Presto- recording begins.

Granted, these might seem minor quibbles - but I find them handy, and Olympus already makes models that are a lot cheaper with these features built in. Maybe they'll offer some kind of software upgrade you can download in the future that'll offer these as options for the $400 wonder.

[taper @ Mar 23rd 2008 10:34PM]

>it doesn't seem to have a timer-recording mode,
> where you can "set & forget" the device. My
> cheepo $90 dollar DS-30 has this available to it

that's because the ds-30 is a voice recorder designed to record in fairly low quality...great for lectures. the ls-10, on the other hand, is designed for professional audio recordings for music and broadcasting. in those situations you don't need set & forget. ditto for the one-touch record. anyone who's ever recorded a band knows you need to set your levels after a pre-record. otherwise you may get clipping and distortion, or won't be able to hear the band adequately. these aren't really issues you need to worry about when taping a lecture. i wouldn't take the ls-10 for recording a lecture as i would rather an el-cheapo recorder for that.

[taper @ Mar 23rd 2008 10:42PM]

would be interested to see any comparisons of sound quality between this unit and other similar portable units like the sony pcm-d50 or the fostex fr2-le.

[DarkLightConnection @ Jan 5th 2008 5:07PM]

Finally, quality (audio) recording on the go...

It's surprising how after years and years and years, most audio recorders are still exactly the same... (exept that now you have flash instead of those tiny cassettes that you can only play on the recorder it came from)

[Oliver Kot @ Jan 5th 2008 6:39PM]

12 hours is pretty nice

[dtscol2000 @ Jan 5th 2008 7:07PM]

Read link is broken, I think it's supposed to point here: http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_PressDetails.asp?pressNo=569

[220mph @ Jan 5th 2008 9:43PM]

A day late and about $200 too much .... pretty hard to compete with the Sampson Zoom H2 for $199 - which has 4 mics

It does have 2gb onboard memory (although a 2gb card for the Zoom is $25 or so

The one positive is remote control - which is a beneficial feature that Zoom does not have

[Stephen Tsai @ Jan 5th 2008 9:43PM]

{explaining to TSA agent} "Really it's not a Taser"

[bb07 @ Jan 8th 2008 5:34PM]

Nice to see that after (pro) audio gear makers like Tascam, M-audio and Roland other players are entering this market. Digital mobrecording is getting mainstream...

Interesting also that this guy has internal memory and built-in stereo speakers. A pity that remote control and AC adapter are optional. That makes the price indeed a bit high, to my opinion.

If you are looking for a taser, than have a look at the ZOOM H4...

[Jim @ Jan 10th 2008 5:35PM]

The questions I have are about the external mic preamps...how noisy are they? I'm assuming we can choose to record at something less than 24/96, like 16/48.

While the internal mics may be fine for music and ambient sound, I would hope you could plug in dynamic or condenser mics that don't require phantom power to get cleaner audio for interviews.

[Pat @ Feb 16th 2008 8:50PM]

I just wish that Olympus would hurry up and release it. I'm stuck between a sony d 50 and the olympus ls-10. Driving me nuts.

I believe you can use a condensor mic, no problem. There's a mic input.