Olympus LS-12 Linear PCM Digital Voice Recorder

I use mine for language study. The battery life is incredibly good and the audio quality of recordings is excellent. I was tempted to buy a more professional recorder, but I came back to Olympus because of the advertised battery life. I use my recorder heavily, even doing a lot of playback which I didn't use to do with other recorders to try and conserve battery life, and I've only changed the batteries a few times in six months. Mine came with the "manual" recording mode non-functional (when I put the rotary dial in the manual mode the unit goes into the "quick" mode) but that's not been an issue. I use the quick mode anyway, either using the medium or high gain settings. The limiter does a great job of avoiding clipping. The mics are highly directional. I wish it had a mode to switch one mic off and record in mono using only one mic for even more directivity. I think this is the best portable recorder out there, certainly for language study.

Sadly this recorder has several shortcomings.But first, the recorder works very well. It records very nicely, it sounds great. The overdub feature is great. The basic recorder functions are terrific, just what you'd expect from an Olympus recorder.It's construction is plastic, which I don't mind, most electronics today are made of plastic. It seems to be pretty sturdy construction, I have no complaints there.The biggest shortcoming is the folder restrictions. You are only able to have folders one level deep. Everything has to be a sub-folder of the root. If you use this device as an mp3 player, or are trying to organize your recordings into sub-folders, you'll be disappointed. The folder structure is very restrictive.I like all the basic features, the sound is great, battery life is great,the build quality, even though it is made of plastic seems very sturdy. I wish Olympus would come out with a firmware patch to fix the folder shortcomings.That said, I'm still happy with my purchase and would recommend this product to anyone looking for a good quality recorder.

It's a good little recorder, and has pretty nice sound quality. Which means it's extra annoying that I can't recommend this as a pocket recorder. One of the reasons I carry a recorder like this is to have it in my pocket, ready to go, all the time. Unfortunately, the LS12 drains its batteries at really fast rate, even if it's turned off. It'll eat up a pair of AAs in a couple of days if you don't take them out of the recorder between uses, which means it's basically useless to have on standby. Go with something like a Zoom H1 or H1n instead - those go for months without needing their batteries changed.

I have been using this for my classes and the audio quality is great. the audio goes from one speaker to the next. and I can even hear when the instructor turns his head or walks away from the microphone. this simple but high quality recorder works great and I will recommend it to my friends.

Seems to eat batteries fairly quickly. No AC power adapter. Cuts out during recording when battery low or you have power-saver enabled. Non-intuitive on/off. No AC power adapter. No case. Instructions not all that helpful. Low-volume internal speaker for playback. Remote on/off (separate purchase) works spottily, and only with quick recording mode. You'll want to buy an SD card to go with it; otherwise, high-quality recording fills up internal memory fairly quickly. Good quality recording, with a range of quality choices.

The sound quality is very dull and lifeless. I wanted to use it for recording my piano grand, but the sound is very dull, almost like it is mono. I tried all settings, positions, bitrates, pcm, mp3, ...nothing changes. This device just removes ALL brilliance of the instrument. It's so bad I'm in doubt of just using the sound of my smartphone instead.On top of this, the user interface and buttons are not that great either.

This was the perfect piece of equipment for clients that dictate rpts for me to transcribe. I ordered one for myself because of the relatively inexpensive cost and I have been able to walk all customers through set up / dictation and sending work with ease. And I am pleasantly surprised at the quality of the voice dictation coming through!

I've been recording for a while now... Had a trial and error period but since been on board. Pretty good recorder for the price. There are better though you just pay more like anything else. But I would definitely recommend it. Very user friendly and not a lot of complicated features. The more you use it the better you have command over it. A little light weight compared to other older Olympus recorders I've own over the years. Everything is being cut across the board. No case or wind screens for the mics. Don't forget to purchase a SD card since the internal memory is only 2GB which will be used up before you blink unless you continuously dump after recording which can be a pain some time if not most. However, go for it if you you have a limited budget like myself.

This one of the best professional recorder I love using everyday or week. I recommend this device to all students attending lecture hall at college or university and have the ability to review the lecture after just in case anything was missed. This is a great product to protective yourself when having a conversation with any company when you have a bill or something to dispute and inform them that they are also being recorded as they also say you are being recorded. When you say that, you will be well served or they will treat you very differently on the phone.