This is wonderful
The last recorder I had was a cassette tape type. The LS-10 is very impressive in technical capability. Fidelity is great even with live music in poor acoustic environments. Best of all it is easy to use for non technophiles like me. It is rugged and solid feeling with a logical layout and truly can be operated one-handed. It fits in a shirt pocket! The compact size does not allow boom-box speakers (duh!)but they are loud enough for a field playback check or just use headphones for more sound. The battery life IS great and it's nice not needing exotic batteries. It comes with all the goodies: case, jack cable and USB cable plus wind guards and editing software and batteries. I checked out Tascam and Edirol recorders. I like the Olympus the best.

Pleased with LS-10 Recorder
Looked into many different Digital Recorders before selecting the Olympus LS-10. I am not disappointed. Using the LS-10 for Oral History Interviews for a Historical Association. The recordings are exceptionally clear, plenty loud and the voice reproduction of the originally speaker is very good. Actually wish the unit had less bells and whistles as some of our volunteers are a bit intimidated by the display and controls. I would have given it 5 stars except for the complaints from elder users. I would recommend this Recorder for Interview type work.

Gary Gadwa
Executive Director
Sawtooth Interpretive and Historical Association
Stanley, Idaho

Best damn money I ever spent.
This is probably the best investment I have ever made. The sound quality from the two mics is incredible. I used to use a full sized sony stereo mic and a dat deck. now I take this. the quality is on par, at least to my ears. Dont listen to the people who bad mouth this unit. It is well built, has EXCELLENT sound quality, and the user interface is perfect. Don't buy any other unit.

Olympus LS-10
This is a great tool. The sensetivity is excellent as is the quality of the recorded material. I find the mic socks necessay in any windy condition. Playback volume, without ear pieces, could be louder for us older guys.

Amazing sound
I have been recording concerts and bands at local establishments for 5 months now. The sound quality is amazing, CD quality recordings are easily obtainable. I highly recommend this product.

olympus player pretty good
Overall it is nice piece of gear, but I have two gripes. It is only monaural, meaning you can only plug in your headphones and listen via one ear. I mean, c'mon, we can split the atom, but we can't have sound in both ears? Second issue is that if you download sound files to your computer, it is a .wav file and there is nothing easily accessible to convert it to .mp3 format, which most portable audio systems need. The file will not convert like most do when you try to import it into iTunes. Says I need some sort of codec. The whole point of downloading to your computer would be so you can listen to it with the portable media device of your choice.

Highly Dissatisfied
Unlike other folks with an unfavorable view, I didn't have any real problems installing the Olympus software and connecting the recorder to my laptop -- and this despite running an XP variant that produced a fail for some other reviewers. If this device will work at all for you, I suspect, the main trick is firstly to plug into the USB port and then run the software. Thereafter, if the software runs properly and you yourself are the least computer savvy, you'll work out the rest within a minute.

No, my problem is that the actual physical device interface and the instructions accompanying it are lacking. As others note, you don't get much in the way of a manual/instruction, and what you do get only covers running the recorder in conjunction with your PC -- as above -- and starts with the heading 'The feature of the Digital Wave Player.' In other words, it's rushed, ill-thought-through copy by somebody in China with imperfect English skills.

No big deal, maybe, because I could work that part out. What I couldn't get easily was the actual physical device. I work as a tech/science journalist and 18 months ago I picked up one of these things on the way to the airport and a trip to interview somebody. Once I'd got my boarding pass, I had fifteen minutes to play around with the recorder. The physical interface of a consumer device like this should be intuitive, especially when Olympus supplies no instructions on that side of things. Nevertheless, I struggled all that time just to set the time on the device. Then, I arrived at no explanation and/or got no results with the index function. Finally, although I could record sound and then stop the recording in tests, when I did my actual interview, I found afterwards that the device had simply turned off/failed to save after about thirty seconds into what would be a two-hour interview.

Fortunately, I also ran two tape cassette machines. But I've no explanation of why the device failed, how its index function works (or doesn't), and what exactly I did to set the time. Even if I'm an idiot -- and if I am, how come I got the USB connection, software and file downloading working immediately? -- a consumer device like this should be idiot-proof, especially when no instructions are supplied. Or maybe it wasn't just a matter of me and the interface design, but rather the unit I had was a lemon. Either way, Olympus gets a failing grade from me for this recorder.

Olympus Digital Recorder
I needed a small recorder for a specific job, and it lived up to my expectations. It's small, light weight and very easy to carry. I'm able to carry it with my camera in a small camera case. All that's needed are earphones! I'm pleased with my purchase.

Software Stinks!
The voice recorder works fine. It's the software that stinks! I have Windows XP and most of the time my system will not recognize this device. If I disconnect the voice recorder and then plug it back in my PC reboots itself. I've reinstalled the software and it makes no difference. I called Olympus and they were of no help! If so many users have this problem why can't they update their software??? I will never buy anything Olympus again!

Excellent Digital Recorder
The Olympus VN-960PC is a great digital recorder with excellent clarity, battery usage, memory size, and ease of use. I highly recommend this if you're looking for a recorder. An additional great feature is the voice activated recording. You can leave the recorder anywhere and it will only record when noise or voices are present. You won't go wrong with this one. The software is also good if you don't have any audio editing software already.

Why so many fake reviews?
The reviews of this product smacked of the manufacturer's marketing department hiring interns to post bogus positive reviews. Sure enough, over and over again so many of the 4 and 5 star reviews are by accounts that exist only to have posted the bogus reviews here.

Please, someone who is familiar with similar models by other companies, name other recommendations here. I hate to give business to a manufacturer that engages in such smarmy and deceptive business practices. Much less the red flag that those posting the bogus reviews clearly don't have confidence in their product based on its own merits.

Especially welcome would be reviews of a competing product with a USB connection that enables it to appear as a another storage device in Windows file management without requiring the install of kludgy software. If my digital camera can transparently display its contents for file copy or move to the PC within Windows File Manager as soon as the USB connects, I'm sure that someone else is manufacturing a voice recorder capable of doing the same.

Cheap, excellent qaulity
Spoken words record and sound excellent. Little backgournd noise. Recording spir of the moment music sessions, like with my guitar, not so great. Still a handy and easy to use recorder with USB. Worth the price!

great!!! but not perfect
This is so far the best (cheap) sound recorder I have had. It does what it is suppose to. The menus are easy to navigate and if you read the manual you can find the perfect settings for recording in any situation. the only thing I have to say would that would be negative would be that when I plug in the headphones to listen to my recordings, only the left earbud works. This also happened when I plugged them into my home speakers. With that said, its a pretty decent machine. Software is a bit slow for my taste.

Awesome recorder
What an awesome digital recorder! I've used it for several different things, including recording a workshop I attended. With the different folders and indexes available its easy to download recordings to my computer and share them with others. I would definitely recommend this recorder to others.

Simply awesome!
This voice recorder is awesome! It has a powerful enough microphone to record when a professor is lecturing half-way across the room, and you can still clearly hear them on play-back. It is easy to use, transfer data to your PC and organize. I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for a simple recorder, and wants to be able to share files with their computer.