Olympus LS10 Audio Field Recorder

Handy High-Quality All-in-one Microphone and Recorder

Aug 12, 2008

This ergonomic one-piece stereo recorder from Olympus, with inbuilt microphones makes interview recording and audio field recording a breeze.

Olympus has a long tradition of making dictation machines, dating back to the days of analogue microcassettes. Up until now its digital audio voice recorders have been limited to note-taking and dictation, because of their voice-optimised ADPCM compression.

The LS10 is in a whole different league. Slim, with a solid –feeling metal body and well placed controls, this is a field recorder that can record uncompressed CD-quality sound (44.1kHz stereo 16-bit PCM). It can even record at higher bitrates, but for audio field recording CD quality is just fine. Compared to other all-in-one audio field recorders the Olympus stands out with a combination of excellent features.

Features

Olympus have fitted the LS10 with good microphone preamplifiers, so if used with decent external microphones hiss is kept at bay. Noisy microphone preamplifiers have been the bane of small solid-state recorders but those of the LS10 are very good. For sure, a Sound Devices 702 will deliver lower noise preamps, but the LS10 mic amplifers are less hissy than most microphones the recorder will be partnered with. That’s good enough in the real world.

Serious recordists do not use Automatic Gain control (AGC). So the record level control is one of the key operational controls. The recordists needs to set this right and be able to adjust it on the fly if need be, and a rotary control like that on the LS10 trumps repeated pressing of a + and – key, as offered on other recorders like the Zoom H2, or even worse the need to enter a menu structure – such as the Zoom H4, Edirol R09 or Sony NH700 minidisc recorders. Having a rotary control on headphone volume is the icing on the cake.

The large screen uses most of the width of the recorder, and the metering is responsive and detailed covering a wide range with good resolution, giving the recordist a good indication of signal levels which is the essence of getting a good recording.

Like many all-in-one field recorders, the LS10 has an integrated stereo microphone on board. This is disabled if an external microphone is connected to the mic jacks. The on-board microphones are fine for interview situations or anywhere where the recorder is within a few metres of the sound and there is not too much ambient noise. They aren’t the best microphones in the world in terms of hiss levels or clarity, and sound somewhat bright, but are more than adequate for interview work on note-taking – dictation machines have never sounded so good! For quality field recording a decent external microphone will improve things, and here the LS10s good microphone preamplifiers mean that unnecessary hiss is unlikely to be added to the sound by the recorder.

Digital Storage and Lossless Transfer

The 2Gb on-board memory can be extended using a SD memory card, and the recordings can be transferred bit-perfectly to a PC using USB. 2Gb is good for up to three hours of CD quality recording. Runtime can be extended by using a larger SD card, or by using the compressed MP3 or WMA recording options.

Conclusion

The Olympus LS10, retailing (2008) at €380 £270 $375 is a handy device offering excellent field recording in one slim device for reporters and field recordists.

Specs