MP3 players forum: MP3 Player for professional-quality voice recording?

Thank you for your quick reply!

I should have specified that it needs to be fairly small as people need to wear it (I tried the iRiver iFP-790 but it only has line-in and compressed recording). The recording quality doesn't have to be top-of-the-line, just decent and definitely better than what you get with regular MP3 player voice recording.

If you have any more ideas you could share with me, I would be very greatful. Thanks!

I am operating under a number of constraints. I need to have the best recording quality possible while keeping the recorder at a maximum of portability (i.e. people need to be able to wear it). I was hoping that there would be a professional-quality recorder that would also match my size needs.

Since that does not seem to be the case, I am able to compromise on recording quality rather than on portability (this is why I cannot use the two products you suggested initially). It seems like all MP3 players are not created equal when it comes to recording. E.g. some have adjustable sampling rates, some don't. I have learned that mic-level input as well as uncompressed recording create better recordings for my purposes, hence I am looking for an MP3 players in a small format that has both.

I already own an iRiver iFP-790, which has line-in recording, but one needs an amplifier to make this work with an external microphone. The amplifier creates noise that I need to keep out of my recording. It seemed that it would be better to search for an MP3 player that has what I need rather than trying to rigg something with the iRiver I have.

But maybe what I need does not exist. Anyone have any suggestions?

Ness

Hi, thanks for your response.

I have to record people (even worse, mostly children) while they're moving around and wearing the recorder. I have tried using the iRiver as it is and it really is fairly decent when you're listening back to it.

However, I need to be able to do acoustic analysis on the recordings. For that, the built-in microphone just isn't good enough, plus the compression leads to a loss of signal for acoustic analysis purposes.

I did read somewhere about working with a pre-amp and external mic plugged into the line-in jack of the iRiver, but I was trying to avoid this cause I'm really not all that great with technology and the fewer pieces the better...

But it's starting to look like that's what I'm going to have to do ;-(
Ness

I'm actually planning to try this

Preamplified Stereo Microphone - SP-Booster-1

http://www.discountdiscs.co.uk/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=SP-BOOST-1&Category_Code=MIC

It doesn't solve the problem with the encoding, but will hopefully resolve the amplifier issue.