Always fancied yourself as a bit of a recording engineer? Like the idea of recording local bands or choirs or whatever, but not too sold on the idea of a car-full of equipment?
Olympus has the answer, in the form of this lovely-looking little recorder, small enough to fit in your pocket, yet packing two high-quality microphones and the ability to record 24-bit/96kHz Linear PCM stereo to its onboard memory or SD cards.
Launched by Olympus America at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show next week, the LS-10 builds on the success of the company's range of voice recorders to create a perfect tool for musicians and audiophiles wanting to make top-quality recordings. As well as uncompressed Linear PCM it will also record WAV, MP3 and WMA, and can record for as long as 12 hours on two AA batteries.
It has a durable aluminium case, a 1.8in LCD display with backlight, and manual record level adjustment. There's 2GB of onboard memory, and the recorder also accepts SD cards for longer recordings.
Stereo speakers are built-in for instant playback, there's an optional wireless remote control for easier recording, and the recorder comes bundled with CUBASE 4 editing software, and a USB cable.
And the most attractive thing about it is the price - in the States it'll sell for just $399, or about £200.