Published 8/2/08
No, it's not a camera!
The Olympus brand has been a household name in the realms of consumer electronics, particularly with regard to photographic equipment, for years, but the Japanese company have branched out into pro audio with a neat product that will no doubt turn some heads.
The LS10 is a portable stereo audio recorder that can capture uncompressed (linear PCM) WAVs at up to 24bit/96kHz. It's also capable of recording and playing back MP3s and WMA files, and users can even listen back to recordings using built-in stereo speakers. As you can see from the picture, the LS10 has a pair of microphones located at the top of its body, but an external mic can be plugged in via a mini-jack socket on the side of the device. Data can be recorded to the LS10's 2GB of on-board memory, although there's a slot for inserting an SD or SDHC card, into which a card of up to 32GB can be inserted.
Front panel controls include the expected play, record, stop and skip features, as well as buttons for entering and navigating menus. An A-B Repeat button enables you to loop a section of audio that's being played back, making transcribing slightly less painful and mastering that guitar lick a breeze! The large backlit LCD displays a reasonably large bargraph meter, as well as information on the current status of the machine.
Down the sides of the slim aluminium body are thumb wheels for controlling the input and output volume of the device, and switches for adjusting the on-board mics' sensitivity and engaging an automatic gain control (AGC) function. There's also a stereo line-level input on mini-jack.
The Olympus LS10 should be available soon, costing around £250. Keep your eyes on the pages of SOS for a forthcoming review.
Olympus UK +44 (0)1923 831100
www.olympus.co.uk
The Olympus brand has been a household name in the realms of consumer electronics, particularly with regard to photographic equipment, for years, but the Japanese company have branched out into pro audio with a neat product that will no doubt turn some heads.The LS10 is a portable stereo audio recorder that can capture uncompressed (linear PCM) WAVs at up to 24bit/96kHz. It's also capable of recording and playing back MP3s and WMA files, and users can even listen back to recordings using built-in stereo speakers. As you can see from the picture, the LS10 has a pair of microphones located at the top of its body, but an external mic can be plugged in via a mini-jack socket on the side of the device. Data can be recorded to the LS10's 2GB of on-board memory, although there's a slot for inserting an SD or SDHC card, into which a card of up to 32GB can be inserted.
Front panel controls include the expected play, record, stop and skip features, as well as buttons for entering and navigating menus. An A-B Repeat button enables you to loop a section of audio that's being played back, making transcribing slightly less painful and mastering that guitar lick a breeze! The large backlit LCD displays a reasonably large bargraph meter, as well as information on the current status of the machine.
Down the sides of the slim aluminium body are thumb wheels for controlling the input and output volume of the device, and switches for adjusting the on-board mics' sensitivity and engaging an automatic gain control (AGC) function. There's also a stereo line-level input on mini-jack.
The Olympus LS10 should be available soon, costing around £250. Keep your eyes on the pages of SOS for a forthcoming review.
Olympus UK +44 (0)1923 831100
www.olympus.co.uk
