Sony ICD-PX720 Digital Voice Recorder with PC Link
by Sony
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List Price: Our Price: $57.75 You Save: $2.20 (4%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony ICD-PX720 Digital Voice Recorder with PC Link
Customer Review: Sony ICD voice recorder
Summary: 5 Stars
Great product.. excellent quality of recording. Works equally well to record lectures or 1 to 1 sessions.Customer Review: great price, fast shipping, great product
Summary: 5 Stars
I use it to record my classes... its been great so far. It was shipped very fast and it was a great priceCustomer Review: This is the ONE!
Summary: 5 Stars
Such a great choice for those looking for an easy, pro and nice voice recording solutions!Customer Review: Excellent voice recorder with some limitations
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased this recorder so I could use speech recognition software if I wanted to, without paying for any additional microphones/headsets. In fact, the recorder is Dragon (a famous brand of speech recognition software) certified to produce "Maximum Accuracy Dictation."
Functionally, this recorder has an easy to reach (i.e. no plastic cover on it) USB port on the left hand side, an easy-to-distinguish recessed Record button, buttons to navigate between folders, play back existing recordings, split an existing recording, change recorder options, change playback volume, erase an existing recording, and a Hold button. The recorder itself is small, lightweight and easy to hold.
For storage, the recorder can hold as many as 99 separate recordings in each of 5 independent folders. This is useful to categorize various voice recordings, such as meetings in one folder perhaps speeches in another.
However, an easy to use recorder is meaningless if the recorder doesn't produce good recording quality. Here, this recorder delivers nicely. The built-in microphone is very good and has a wide dynamic range (i.e. it clearly picks up high and low frequencies). There are two sensitivity settings for the microphone---Low which is for individual dictation, and High which is for group meetings (or recording things farther away from the recorder). In addition, the recorder has a good built-in speaker.
If you need better recording quality (or want to play back the messages privately), the recorder provides a headset jack and a microphone jack.
As for recording quality, standard quality recording (44.1 kHz @ 48 KBPS) produces clearly understandable voice output. In this mode, the recorder can store up to 48 hours of voice recording and can run for up to 35 hours on 2 AAA batteries. This is the best mode for normal dictation (since it provides 4x as much space as the highest quality mode---which can only store 12 hours of data and run for 20 hours).
They have a super long recording time they brag about on the box. This is the LP mode (11.025 kHz @ 8 KBPS)---288 hours. This sounds impressive, but it is nearly useless. When I recorded a brief amount in this mode, my voice sounded very metallic and I heard weird high pitched metallic warbling in the background. There was somewhat less warbling at Low microphone sensitivity, but although my voice was understandable, but I don't recommend this mode for any real recording. The metallic warbling is very distracting.
In addition, the recorder can run on rechargable AAA batteries (NiMH) or even run from power provided over the mini-USB port. These are good options to save on batteries and perform very long recordings.
In my experience, the standard quality is fine for normal dictation. If I wanted to record music, EVPs, or for dictation into speech recognition software, I would use the maximum quality mode, since it is better at capturing higher frequencies and may better capture faint noises.
However, there are some downsides to this recorder. First, the recorder does NOT record data natively as MP3s (which it claims to on the box). This is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5.
To access the recorder, Sony provides Windows software to copy voice files off it. The Windows software can store the files as MP3s, as well as encode MP3s so the recorder can play them back, so, if you are not using Windows, you cannot transfer recordings from the recorder.
Basically, if you are using Windows the recorder software is not a problem. If you are not, the computer will not see the recorder and you will be unable to use it. The recorder will still function very well as a normal voice recorder, but you will not be able to access the digital data on it.
Secondly, the recorder cannot accept any type of memory card to expand its capacity.
Beyond that, this recorder does not record sound in stereo, although it will accept stereo microphones. For me, since I'm only using it for voice dictation, this is not an issue, but for anyone who wants to use it to record music (such as an impromptu jazz session), it might be.
Finally, the recorder does not act as a USB drive or as an MP3 player. You can load music files (converted to Sony's proprietary sound format) onto it, but it doesn't have shuffle, playlists, or other standard MP3 player features. For me, these aren't issues since I have separate gadgets to fulfill these needs far better, but some voice recorders have these features.
In conclusion, if you are using Windows and you need a high quality, reasonably priced voice recorder, this will fit the bill nicely. If you want a recorder that is more of a Swiss Army knife of gadgets, this won't work for you.
Customer Review: Radio line-in doesn't work with all 3.5mm cables. Static with some.
Summary: 4 Stars
For line in recording, make sure you have a good cable - mine is very thick. And do not put it near other radio equipment because the cable may pick up static.
I bought the Sony ICD-PX720 Digital Voice Recorder to record from
my radio with 3.5 jack to the radio from the voice recorder. I even switched the
jack from microphone jack to the headphone jack on the voice recorder. All I get is static radio with horrible quality. [UPDATE. IT TURNS OUT THE CABLE I USED THAT WAS FINE FOR ANOTHER DEVICE-FOR SOME REASON RECORDED STATIC WITH THIS DEVICE.] I called Sony and they gave great suggestions - switch to Low sensitivity and I put the Quality of recording on high so there would be no skips. Well no matter what I do when recording radio it is all static.
I think the voice recording part is good, but that's not the feature I bought it for.
For radio or voice recording I tried a Sansa Clip+ by SanDisk about the same price $44. It is tiny but the quality is great. It does stereo recording with its own built in radio and it does Voice Recording too! Quality of the sound is 10X better. Only problem is the internal non-removable battery. The Sansa Clip MP3 that I recommend also has an expandable micro-SD card slot for more recording time.
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