Is anyone out there using anything like this? If so, thoughts?
There is a really, really useful comparison of the leading portable recording units of this type here:
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/audio/portable-recorder-comparison/
Mark Nelson, who’s doing the reviews, is a traditional music enthusiast (with electic tastes, but he likes going to sessions and making field recordings), so his criteria and reviews are very practical for our purposes. He reviews the Yamaha here as well as a bunch of others; if you click on the name of the unit next to its picture in the chart linked to above, you can read his full review.
Highly recommended – his reviews are very detailed and go on for several pages; they include sample recordings.
great!
This is also usefull http://alatest.com/
Ole
judging by his report, this seems to be the best for the small devices
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2008/05/22/olympus-ls-10-recorder-review.html
That was my conclusion too after reading his reviews. I’m struggling to stick to my decision to stay with my old Sharp minidisc recorder until it dies, before replacing it with one of these new devices. The problem is that my minidisc shows no signs of wearing out; it’s almost 12 years old now and still works as well as it did the day I bought it!
I got the Olympus about 6 months ago and have been very happy with it. Like all electronics, they just keep getting smaller, better and more time from a set of batteries. Within a year, there will probably be something better yet for even less money. 
…going to buy the Olympus. will letcha know how it works during WCSS etc
Though somewhat lightweight, and delicate feeling, I’ve been using this little guy for recording sermons for several months now, and as far as line in, it’s extremely high quality.
It has a 360o degree 4 mic system for room recording: and can be had for $130.00 ish
my .02
http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodid=1916
Kynch, I also have the Olympus LS10, its a great little recorder.
On the same topic, can anyone recommend a good, inexpensive microphone for a small digital voice recorder? I have a Tascam DR1 which has a really nice build-in microphone, but I use the following (smaller) unit when I don’t want to carry the (expensive and larger) Tascam with me:
Returning back to topic, this is a nice unit because you can reduce the playback speed down to 50%. I like it because I can record on an SD card that I can quickly pop into my Tascam DR1 at home.
For a very small, easily portable, and convenient stereo mic for small recorders you can’t go wrong with the T-shaped mic from Sound Professionals:
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-SPSM-13
At about $70 it’s not cheap, but the sound quality is excellent. I’ve been using one of these for the past 10-12 years and am very happy with it. Sound Professionals in general makes really good little mics for digital recorders.
Thanks!
I have been making do with a refurbish Sansa Clip MP3 player. It’s headphone port also doubles as a mic port for recording. For a mic, I have a Sony t-style mic. Total bill: about $35. Not as fancy as the Olympus thing, though.
I have been using an Edirol for some time and apart from the plainly silly battery cover and clunky menu it is a superb recorder. However I have recently downloaded an application for my Iphone (works on Ipods as well) that looks as if it will do everything I want, and rather than carrying two gadgets I will have only one. It is called FiRe Field Recorder and costs $8..! It works with just adequate quality on the internal mic, and I’m told in order to get really good quality I need to fit a Blue Mikey microphone (around AUD $139, US $79). Nothing else will fit.
If you go looking for it, due to a recent update of Iphone firmware the recorder is not available but will be again any day now.
Be warned, transferring home-made files from Iphones and Ipods is not straightforward unless you have access to a computer with a wifi network, at which point it is simple.
Chris
The Sansa Clip is great; several of my friends use them. The sound quality is remarkably good for something so small. It seemed like the original poster was looking for something with more flexibility and higher recording quality, otherwise I would have recommended the Clip too. It’s about the size of two postage stamps. I believe it only records WAV files, which is a small drawback as the disk fills up more quickly than if you could record directly in MP3, but the higher-capacity ones can record quite a few hours of music and I think it’s a very handy device for recording tunes in sessions.