Digital voice recorder purchase

[entity279]

I would like to purchase such a device but I am almost unfamiliar with the field. Searching the web a bit revealed some (apparently) quite promising results from Olympus. Are they good fur such products or who is ?

Anyway, my needs are the following
-should be portable, it will be used for recording speeches: ideally the person that speaks has the recorder in his pocket (or whatever) and also wears a light microphone.
-quality should be good, but doesn't need to be exaggerated. I guess PCM output is what i should be looking for
-easy PC connectivity (of course)

I am also interested in a suitable microphone. And furthermore, how can such a system be extended in order to both record on the recorder and live stream the output to some speakers in the room where the speech is given?

Thanks for any advice you may give


This is what i was looking at http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/pr_olympus_ls11. Don't know how the extension problem I was mentioning would be solved though. The price is within bounds; I guess I am willing to pay as much as 500 euros for the recorder +microphone.

 

[Davros]

"And furthermore, how can such a system be extended in order to both record on the recorder and live stream the output to some speakers"

do them seperately

 

[Arwin]

I'm figuring the iPhone can do all this, but probably not at the quality you want ...

 

[entity279]

do them seperately

That would imply two different microphones being used as far as I can figure

@Arwin: yes, we were previously using conventional mp3 players but of course the built-in microphone is pretty poor and can't be conveniently placed close to the mouth of the speaker.

 

[V3]

Something like Zoom H4N maybe ?

http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/

 

[Arwin]

That would imply two different microphones being used as far as I can figure

@Arwin: yes, we were previously using conventional mp3 players but of course the built-in microphone is pretty poor and can't be conveniently placed close to the mouth of the speaker.

Though phones (like iPhone) do have good bluetooth headsets right?

 

[entity279]

@Arwin
The whole thing isn't going to be my personal property and a phone would require subscribing to a phone company and paying them something just in order to be able to record. It isn't the most elegant solution in this context, though of course it is a possible one. I didn't know about it as i don't care at all about fancy phones and their capabilities.


@V3
Yeah, from the reviews and all, that zoom looks ok. I guess that if you can connected it to a laptop as a sound card you can also output what is recorded to some speakers somehow.

 

[Arwin]

Not necessarily. You can buy phones like the HTC and even the iPhone sim-lock free, and the price isn't always that bad either. My company bought all our iPhones that way, and I've contemplated getting a simlock free HTC Hero before that (400 euros late last year).