Side by Side Comparison of: Olympus vs Yamaha

Admittedly, I haven't used this nearly enough but the little I have it's worked fantastic. I need to figure a way to make better use, especially give that I bought it to have when I'm driving alone, which seems to be when I do some of my best thinking and idea creating. If I can't remember to keep this one me more consistently, it'll be one of the more valuable purchases I've made in some time.

I used this for my college lectures so that I could listen to the classes again when studying for exams. It also allowed me to just sit and listen to everything the professor was saying instead of scrambling to write everything down. It was easy to use and stored a lot of audio! It was also very sensitive. I could sit at the back of the lecture hall and still hear my teacher in the recording.

First you need to down load the manual, as the that comes with recorder has little print, hard to read. I like on my tabler as it is easy to look at it. Had Doc appointment, hadrecorder in my shirt pocket, we was about 3 ft appart once 5 ft apart and recorded her voice very clear. This might be small and light but it is very powerful recording. Will worth the money.

With my failing memory, this little recorder has become indispensable for me. It fits in any pocket and it is so handy to make notes to myself when I am out walking. Also, I am a birder and this recorder is perfect to keep track of sightings, whether on daily walks or on birding trips to new countries. No more pencils that break or pens running dry. No more soggy note pads on rainy days. I lost my first Olympus recorder in Florida last month and when I got home, ordering a new one was tops on my to-do list. Just be aware when setting it up that recording volume and playback volume are two separate things. I set my recording volume and was distraught when I could not hear anything on my first recording. Read manual carefully. LOL

This is a great little unit. Maybe rare that people still use digital recorders that cannot be connected to a computer, but this is really handy and works for me. Very similar to the last Olympus I had (for a LONG time). I'm giving it 5 stars, but do have one "con" to report: it used to be that if it wasn't on standby, it was "on", but this one has an energy-saving feature (which I guess is good) that puts it to sleep after a while. But then it takes several seconds to "wake up" and I don't like this waiting period. Yes, yes, I know, a "1st World problem"--- but I guess that goes to my point. This is the only thing I don't like about this unit.

This recorder is very easy to use as it has only two large buttons, one for Stop and one for Record. There is also a toggle wheel that allows skipping back and forth through recording and a button in the center that serves as an ENTER button for message prompts. So it's easy to grab and start recording and to hit Stop when finished. Battery life is excellent, the delete recording button is small and you get a verification prompt before deleting so you will never accidentally delete a recording. Usage is very intuitive and I started using it without reading the instructions. The LED readout is not backlit and that is a downside and this is the model that does not allow uploading the audio files to computer (which I did not want or need). So the only improvement would be to backlight the LED readout but then that would shorten battery life. I'm very happy with the simplicity of use, the uncluttered ergonomic design and layout of controls, it's very light weight even with batteries, and it's small size that fits nicely in shirt pocket.

I decided to learn to play music and bought this, and its awesome! It's only around 7 dollars and it sounds amazing! I can play all sorts of songs and it has a really cool pouch that I keep it in. I can't recommend this enough! It's awesome! Feels really well made. The only con I have is that one of the holes is off a bit which seems odd, I don't know if recorders are supposed to have that but it's a little weird, but besides that it's awesome and great for anyone to learn to play songs and annoy your neighbors!

Works great, my toddler is a bit scared of it because it's very loud. Of course he's only 3 so his breath control isn't great. That's just because he's a bit too young for it now. It's be very well made and solid feeling.. It'll last a long time so maybe when he's in school if they still have mandatory recorder learning by then.

These are very nice, very noisy, but nice!! My two boys (ages 12, 11) love these. I had to make them go outside after the first couple of minutes, but they are very happy with them. I am going to try to look up some music online so that maybe they can actually learn to play something instead of just making noise. ;)

We needed to get this for elementary school. It seems to be just like the one I learned to play in grade school, only its so much prettier!! My daughter loves it and is leaning how to play songs in school. It came with a clear vinyl case to keep it clean and from getting scratched up in her backpack.

Perfect model for children to learn with. This Yamaha is well made and tuned properly

Pros:* Multiple joints that slide well, easy to tune and adjust pinky holes* Sounds just like I remember from 20 years ago* I learned how to play the Harry Potter song and I can reliably get 70-80% of the notes correctCons:* My roommates have it made it clear that they don't think learning recorder is something a grown man should be doing

Got this for my wife to record the classes she takes. She uses the recorder to play back the classes for study purposes. It does what she wants it for.

This is perfect for all those classes with that one instructor who drones on & on & onnnnnnn, leaving you unable to maintain focus bc they lecture using a monotone voice. Haha no but really, this recorder comes in handy. Most of the time instructors fly through lectures & its nearly impossible to write everything down fast enough. I use this to review what was said in lecture & it really helps when studying. My only complaint is that when I plug in earphones, the recording is only played in one ear which I find hella annoying. Also, don't plan on uploading your lecture recordings for other students if they miss class, bc there is no way to transfer the recordings to any device. Other than that, would recommend!

I bought this device with the intention of recording Foley sound effects, yet I neglected to see that it has no means of sending data to a PC. I did find a workaround by using a 3.5mm cable from the device's ear output to my PC's line in and can document audio like so. The audio quality from my view is alright for its purposes, and can be digitally improved for mine. As for the device itself, it's handy to have while recording, and, in tandem with my shotgun mic, records nicely. When recording to PC, I had to adjust line in volume so that the audio wouldn't clip at every sound, but I can call this buy a happy accident.

This is a really good machine. I use it to record interviews for my school newspaper. It does a great job in canceling out background noises. You can't really connect it to a computer, so you should prepare to manage your recordings on the machine itself only. Battery life is incredible, still working after half a year on packaged set.When plugging in the earbuds sound only came out of one side which is sometimes a bit annoying, but without earbuds the recordings sound great. A nice feature this recorder has is that it allows you to mark certain spots in a recording for easier access. No need in rewinding or forwarding to find that crucial spot, get back to it with a click of a button. I also recorded a lecture once and it sounded pretty good.This is a good option if you don't want to edit recordings on computer or share them with lots of people. Great for personal use and easy to carry around.

So far, very good. I miss a couple of the features of the higher-end Olympus recorder I got a refurbished version of, but turned to this after that one's technical problems resurfaced. I use this for work and it does a great job of capturing the sound in meetings, except when it's so bad you figured there would be a problem. A good buy for the $.

Pros:The build quality of this recorder is great and it records a lot of audio.Cons:I have two major issues with this recorder, but since it's a budget recorder, I realize the limitations and I'm only taking off 1 star.Issue #1: It cannot plug into a computer to pull the audio file off of the recorder.Issue #2: There is no way to lock the device from input on the buttons. Often when putting the recorder in your pocket, you will inadvertently press a button and stop recording.Small Issue #3: There should be a way to put some kind of blanket lock on the device to prevent access to be able to delete any files.

I don't know what was more satisfying; When I played a harmonizing solo, or when I "accidentally" sat on it.

This sounds very good. Got this for our daughter. We were a bit disappointed that it didn't come with it's own cleaning stick.

Good product for basic school recorders. I bought extras for our school for the kids who could not afford one for themselves so the music teacher was very happy to receive them. No bells and whistles which is fine. I will buy again.

This was required for my daughter's music class. I bought it against my better judgement. It works great but I recommend also buying ear plugs or noise canceling headphones.

Granddaughter likes it; her parents don't :-) Not sure if she actually uses it much or not but I'd say it's good quality at a good price. I'd recommend it.

We bought this for our almost 5 year-old daughter, she has been asking for one for a while. I wanted to get her an actual instrument and not a toy recorder. I am going to have to find out how to make music with it to teach her. I am happy with the sound it makes and it seems durable. It recommends wiping it out after every use but does not come with an appropriate cloth to do this with. This is why I would give it only 4 stars...I would have been willing to pay a few dollars extra for it to have come with something that could be used to wipe it out with (I am thinking that an appropriate tool exists, but now I'll probably have to buy it from a music store or something).

This device works well but I was expecting it to sleep when in "standby" mode. It doesn't, and the batteries only lasts a day. I would suggest buying a power cord if you want this to monitor your call and wake when the phone rings without you having to turn it on every time.

its okay

Great recorder but no way to extract the audio to a computer

While this is adequate for occasional recording purposes it is a bit lacking in that the volume doesn't get very loud. But then, it was pretty cheap. Wish I had sprung for a better one though. It is ultra small however if that would be a plus for you. Very tiny, hardly weighs anything.

The Olypmus Digital Voice Recorder has me offering up mixed opinions. I needed a digital voice recorder for a press trip I was about to head out on to meet Meryl Streep(find the post on my website). I quickly purchased this Digital Voice Recorder and while I love the functionality, as it is so easy to use, I totally dislike the 'warbly' voice recast it provides. This is just a basic digital voice recorder, and perhaps my expectations were too high, I am glad we had transcripts because the sound was not good on replay.

unit has a delay time before you can record as it sort of wakes up and gets ready for use. I have gone through many of these recorders and this is a first. I don't really like it. just a personal preference.

good product for the price, is very sensible, any way is really cheaper and good for the price

nice and smooth. i wish the holes could be more easily felt by the fingers. perhaps it is my fault, i'm a beginner, but i'm having difficulty keeping the holes totally covered.

Perhaps it's just me, but I don't recall my recorder in high school being as screechy.

It's only $6 so it's not exactly a huge loss but I just don't remember recorders being so low quality in tone and feel. This requires extremely soft air flow to play notes properly otherwise it just squeals like crazy. Might be good for your kid learning in school but don't get this if you plan on doing anything serious with it.

Not as good as I would have liked, it leaked air and tones are not consistent.

It clearly stated a blue, as seen in picture recorder. We recieved a bright turquoise recorder for my son to take to school. Wouldnt have purchased if knew the color would be different. The reason we purchased this one was to have a blue recorder. Disappointed in the description of the product and what we actually recieved

I ordered this for a back up to the one I have now that I love. It's my fault but I didn't realize that this one is not USB compatible. I can make all the recordings I want but there's no way to get them off the recorder. It just sits in a drawer now and at some point in time, I'll order another one that has USB properties to save the files to my computer.

Product's described ability to connect to a computer is incredibly misleading. The only way to connect is through actual audio playback, and utilizing a separate 3rd party sound recording software to record via the audio output jack, but any actual file transfer is impossible. This is not an acceptable mode of transfer considering the thousands of hours of potential recording capacity that are advertised.

Somehow, I expected it to be 2-3 x bigger than it was. When I tried to understand the directions, they were not understandable ( seems like someone who did not understand American-English was attempting to write directions). Then, what I could get didn't seem to be accurate. I will keep it and work on getting the understanding of how to use it by working on it. I really think it is good quality product, just, not very clear and very small printed instructions. I will need to work very hard to be able to use it, my hands are large, and I'm 94 so my eye-sight is not so good.

I bought, tested and returned this product within a matter of days. The VN-7200 worked as advertised but it wasn't suitable for my use. It included no micro USB or regular USB connection; the only way to transfer audio from the recorder to a computer is in real-time with a 3.5 mm male-to-male cable. That's a lot of work if you have audio interviews of 2+ hours.I returned this and bought the Olympus VN-722PC, which is about $10 more than the VN-7200, and the extra functionality (connecting it to my computer's USB port) is well worth it.

I bought this based off of its great reviews. This is a great product, but you have to jump through quite a few hoops to get your recording onto the computer. Even if you buy the cable, you have to listen to the recording while you are putting it onto the computer. I really wanted a tape recorder that could put the MP3 files onto my computer in seconds. I invested in a more expensive recorder with great features. This is a good product if you do not want anything fancy and are not planning on putting the recording on the computer. If you want to put the recording on the computer, I suggest buying a nice model.

The quality of this device seems good, and the battery life and recording space is nice, but it has a huge fundamental flaw: no USB or card support. The most you can do is make recordings and listen back on the device. It severely limits the usability of this product, and it's only a $15 difference to upgrade to one with USB.

It's not in perfect tune, unfortunately. It works for kids, but not if you want to play for real.

I had to buy a cleaning rod at a music store, and it cost nearly as much as the recorder. I would not buy this again.

Slightly but noticeably out of tune despite all adjustments. My expectations were not particularly high for an $8 plastic instrument, but Yamaha usually makes pretty decent cheap instruments across the board. This seems to be an exception, though.

The Yamaha YRS-23Y Soprano Recorder uses German fingering, and this may not be what you want.I recommend the Yamaha YRS-24B Soprano Recorder that uses the standard Baroque fingering (also called English fingering).The Yamaha YRS-23Y and the YRS-24B are almost identical. The main difference is that the third hole from the bottom on the Yamaha YRS-23Y (German fingering) is slightly smaller than the one on the YRS-24B (Baroque fingering). This changes the fingering so that the F and F# notes are slightly easier to play using German fingering. A small chart showing the difference in fingering comes with either recorder.The German system originated in Germany in 1930 and was developed for beginners. Recorders with German fingering are slightly easier to play, but some of the notes play out of tune.Many manufacturers offer soprano recorders with German fingering, and I think this is because there is a big market for young children learning to play recorder. I personally think that it's a bad idea to give a child a recorder that plays out of tune.All alto, tenor, and bass recorders use Baroque fingering. So if you learn German fingering, it makes it difficult to unlearn German fingering and learn Baroque fingering when you want to switch to alto or tenor recorder.From Wikipedia:In the early part of the 20th century, Peter Harlan developed a recorder that allowed for apparently simpler fingering, called German fingering. A recorder designed for German fingering has a hole five that is smaller than hole four-whereas baroque and neo-baroque recorders have a hole four that is smaller than hole five. The immediate difference in fingering is for F and B♭, which on a neo-baroque instrument must be fingered 0 123 4-67. With German fingering, this becomes a simpler 0 123 4 - - -. Unfortunately, this caused many other chromatic notes to become so out of tune that they were considered unusable. German fingering became popular in Europe, especially Germany, in the 1930s, but rapidly became obsolete in the 1950s as the recorder began to be treated more seriously and the limitations of German fingering became more widely appreciated. Recorders with German fingering are manufactured exclusively for educational purposes.Use your browser to search on "recorder musical instrument wikipedia".Scroll down to the "Contents" box.Click "German fingering" (under the "3 Structure" heading).Additional Note: Use your browser to search on “michala petri” and listen to her play Bach and Vivaldi on YouTube. Michala Petri is sometimes referred to as the “Queen of the Recorder”.

Sound is a little off. Not sure why as I had the nontransparent version in the past and no such issue.

The recorders arrived on time, but 9 out of 10 had torn/ripped cases. I was not pleased with this as I had bought them for my students, and I had to buy alternate cases in order to give them out to the kids.

I have owned half a dozen or so olympus digital voice recorders of various model numbers. I use them on a daily basis. they live in my pocket and come out repeatedly, often for hours at a time for recording inventory, notes, etc.first of all, I was confused that they had reversed the direction of the hold switch for this model to the other 3-4 olympus digital voice recorders I have owned. that was annoying and took some trail and error getting used to, often thinking I was recording but it would end up being on hold.secondly, and more importantly, the stop button began to misbehave within a couple weeks, and i would need to press it very hard in order to work. lo and behold, without warning, the button quit on me altogether today. This was brand new a couple months ago. Again, usually I get at least a couple of years out of these before they quit. Very disappointed in the poor quality of this item. perhaps it was just a lemon.

Does not work. Period. Unfortunately I took this device with me out of the country doing a 3-month trip and I did not open it before I left the US border. Out of the box it never worked!

Purchased but not used for 2 months. Put in new battery. Unit didn't work. Difficult to change functions and the desired function showed the wrong result. Couldn't change files without dumping info. A worthless unit.They wouldn't take it back. 2 months old. So was it supposed to last 62 days?Don't buy from these people. There's lots of recorders out there.

How can "simple" end up being so unreliable? I bought two of these to replace a couple of trusty microcasette recorders. For some reason I still can't understand, after recording a number of separate comments during a long car trip, I found that only the last few were accessible. The rest had . . . disappeared. That's just not acceptable. I know a lot about tech -- but this thing apparently outwitted me.

After I used this recorder 4-5 times, it got completely out of order. Every time I turn on the recorder and starts to record, the battery turns to zero and can't do any recording or listening. I cannot return this item any more because the return period was too short and it got broken right after that period ended. Awful product and terrible service... Never buy this!!!

This digital voice recorder has literally one half of the features that the Olympus VN-5200 PC has. If you drop it, it's done, you might as well get a new one. It is cheaply made and looks it! It would be okay to give a child just starting kindergarten but,if you need something that you can download with this isn't the item. If you are looking for dependability I would highly recommend the Olympus VN-5200 PC ,avoid the VN-7200 like the plague!

F is a little off tune. Sounds like F#

It sounds great and durable. However, it has a BIG problem. Its F is almost Fsharp. I also bought a blue one and found it had the same problem.

Will not play low notes. yes I know how you are supposed to use it.

We would love to suggest using a hemp plastic is toxic and we have cut enough trees down on this planet!

came in wrong key?

I should have read the reviews. It's only one recorder, not three. Otherwise, it's a very good product and if it says Yamaha, then you know it's good.