If you are looking to make a buying decision between the ux560 and the ux570, here’s my advice. Head over to Amazon (I’ve found Amazon offers the lowest prices) and compare the price of the ux560 and ux570. Whichever is cheaper, buy it. There’s very little that differentiates the ux560 from the ux570. Continue reading…
The ux570 is a wonderful voice recorder. It’s compact, easily portable and can easily fit in your pocket or bag. Records good audio using the 44.1kHz/16bit audio format and the right setting and allows you to monitor your recording. The LCF and NCF filters are powerful and help reduce noise when recording in a noisy location. And the ux570 provides plugin power through it’s 3.5mm TRS mic input.
The USB connector is poorly designed and can lead to a lot of mishaps, I recommend you buy a male to female USB-A cable and use it connect the ux570 to your computer. Without any reservations, I recommend the Sony ICD-ux570 for recording interviews, lectures, focus group discussions and meetings.
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Been getting a lot of questions about the Sony ICD-ux560 and external microphones. Which made me realize that we don’t have a comprehensive post on using external microphones on the Sony ICD-ux560. However, we do have a post on when you should consider using an external microphone and 3 external microphone recommendations. And we have another post on choosing a clip on microphone for interviews. Irrespective of those 2 posts, we don’t recommend using external microphone for recording your research interviews. That’s because, in most cases, using external microphones will not get you significantly better audio than using a good voice recorder. Obviously, there are caveats to that statement: if you are recording focus groups or group interviews, meetings, or recording interviews in noisy locations. For 1-on-1 research interviews in quiet locations, a good voice recorder (see our recommendations here) is more than sufficient. If you want to get studio quality audio recordings of… Continue reading…
USB PC/Charging Cable As I outlined in this post on how to take care of your Sony ICD-ux560, I consider this cable a must have accessory. It’s possible to charge and connect your Sony recorder to your PC/Mac without a cable, but the built in USB is the weakest part on this recorder. And if breaks off, you are left with a very light paperweight. Now, the cable you get will depend on your PC/Mac. If you own an older computer (PC/Mac) that comes with the full size USB port, get this Female to Male USB A cable (Amazon link). If you own a newer computer (PC or Mac) with a USB Type C port, get this Female to Male USB A to USB-C cable (Amazon link). If you are on a Mac computer that has a lightening port, get this Female to Male USB A to lightening cable (Amazon link). Micro-SD Cards You… Continue reading…
If you’ve read our blog (or skimmed through it), you’ll have realized that the Sony ICD-ux560 is my go-to voice recorder. It’s compact, easy to use, and records great sound. Now, I’ve found the best clip on microphones, MicroSD cards, and USB cable for my ux560. But, I’ve yet to find a good carrying case for the ux560: until now. When I bought my ux560, I did realize it was important to protect it using a carrying case. So I go the AGPTEK carrying case that Amazon recommends. What a disappointment. The AGPTEK case is too big! When you place the recorder inside the AGPTEK case, it flops around. It’s not a tight fit and does not hold the ux560 in place. My workaround was to stuff the case with my clip-on microphones, splitter cable, and USB cable. But all my ux560 accessories to don’t fit into this case. When I realized this I did… Continue reading…
This review of the Sony ICD-BX140 is going to be slightly different from my normal product reviews. Let me explain why. I’ve penned a great review of the Sony ICD-PX240, and The BX140 is very similar to the PX240. In fact it’s the same recorder! Same build, same features. Yes, it does have a different color and one (1) other feature that differentiates the Sony ICD-BX140 from the Sony ICD-PX240: the BX140 does not have a USB slot! So, if you get the Sony ICD-BX140 there is not easy way for you to transfer your recordings to your computer. WTF Sony! But actually, what Sony is doing is called price differentiation. They have made a product – in this case a voice recorder, and would like to make more money from it. Thus, they have taken the voice recorder and created two product that are exactly the same, expect that they’ve added one key feature… Continue reading…
Monitoring your research interviews recording enables you to take the quality of your research interviews audio recording from meh to excellent. The Sony ICD-ux560 offers you two ways to monitor the sound quality of your research interviews; dB meters and the line out headphone jack. In this post I’m going to show you how to use both to greatly increase the sound quality of your research interviews. But first, a few caveats. This post is going to focus on using the Sony ICD-ux560, and the Giant Squid lavalier microphones and the Hosa splitter, because that’s the setup I recommend for recording interviews in a noisy location. Truth be told, if you are recording in a quiet location, you can get away with not monitoring the sound quality of your interviews. It would help increase the quality of the recorded audio, but you can get away with a lot. However, if you are recording your interviews… Continue reading…
When the Tascam DR-05x was released, earlier this year, I was really excited. The older Tascam DR-05 was one of the first digital voice recorders I bought, but it had a few issues and I got rid of it. My hope was that Tascam had resolved those issues. TLDR: they fixed a few issues, but didn’t fix the major one. Summary: Tascam DR-05x Review The Good: Comes with lots of features and functions. You will need the manual! Supports MicroSDXC SD cards. Mono recording… The Bad: Has the same radio interference issue that’s the bane of Tascam recorders. Bulky. Not great for voice recordings – very sensitive built-in microphones. Verdict: A definite improvement from the earlier version. Still has the radio interference issue. Packed with features. Gets my recommendation for a high fidelity digital recorder. Buy it now from Amazon. I do like Tascams because they come parked with lots of features. And in… Continue reading…
If you plan to use the Sony ICD-ux560 to conduct your research interviews, what are the 4 how-to’s you should learn before you conduct your first interview?
1. How to Store Your Recordings
Qualitative research projects produce a lot of data, you’ll need to be organized or the data will overwhelm you. And this tends to trip a lot of researchers. Continue reading…
So, I was looking for a recorder for dictation purposes; this year I do plan to dictate a lot of posts. I bought a few voice recorders that are built for dictation. And I have to say, so far, the Sony ICD-px240 has been my favorite dictation recorder.
Now, this recorder is not built to record interviews, meetings, focus group discussions etc. I’d not recommend it for those instances, and I’ll get to the reasons why in this post, but I’d definitely recommend this recorder if you’re looking to record your dictations. Continue reading…