Yes, but I was talking about the Edirol R09, which we do know is accessible because of the number of blind people who use it for their recording needs.

Yes, but I was wondering if anyone on here who uses one might know where I might be able to purchase one without having to pay a whole arm and a leg for it, so to speak. As I said Amazon has them for close to 400 bucks, and i don't want to fork over that much money until it's clear that's the cheapest I can get one. As for the menus, even though the unit doesn't actually talk, from everything I've read about it, they're easy to memorize and use, partly because they keep your place in the menu from the last time you used it and they don't wrap, so if you know what choice a particular option is in terms of what number it is, it's very easy to get back up to the top of the menu and find the one you want. Recording is also suposed to be extremely simple. Actually if I'm not mistaken you can start recording from the moment the unit powers on, and the battery life is supposed to be very good, and I mean very. I still have plans to do Audio Game reviews and it occurred to me that the Edirol mightt be good for that, not to mention making the recording of college lectures a lot easier.

Funny. I'd just sent you an Email about this and then I saw your post. Thanks for the inf. I id notice the nice stereo mikes, but it was from Jim Fidler's podcast. A pretty cool feature. I've read mixed reviews on Amazon, but apparently the good far outweighs the bad as far as this machine goes. I think I saw maybe four negative reviewsout of twenty. I think I'm going to call some electronics stores in my area and see if any of them carries these things. Then if nothing else I can order a 2GB memory card separately if I can't find them there. But I could seriously see myself using this thing in my Psychology classes to record the lectures. Heck, I could use it in math class and just copy the files to my laptop.

Nice. I'll be checking the site. Actualy, my momand i are going to do some browsing later today to see if we can't find a place that carries at least the R09. I've actually got  cuple jackets, one of which is light enough for the weather we've bee having here lately, that have inside pockets where I could conceivably store my unit. From the various descriptions i've heard from people who've cast pods about it (LOL), it sounds like it's only slightly larger than my Nokia 6682 phone. Something that small could fit in the inside pocket of a coat when it wasn't in use and then sit on a desk next to a laptop when it was recording. And I hear those mikes have quite a nice range to them. I particularly liked Eric Troop's cast where he took it out of the box for the first time. Quite funny actually.

Indeed Brian, I too have jacketses with pockitses it would fit in, however sinse some of the recordings I'd like to do would be outdoors, ----- perhaps beside the lake here in colidge, I'd rather not take chances with holding it while recording, especially given the staggering proportion of drunken students around here, ;d.

Jim Troops recording is rather cool.

to Mike and Andy, the r09 is indeed a digital recorder produced by rowland, about the size of a mobile phone, a pair of sterrio mikes and the ability to reccord either in Wav or Mp3 at various sample rates.

It reccords directly onto memory cards rather than having an internal harddrive, and can be connected to a computer with a Usb cable.

while it's not specifically markited as assistive tech (it has an Lcd display), it's highly accessible, with easy controls for recording and an easy to memorize and navigate menue structure, so it's used by many visually impared people and sold by companies who also sell assistive tech, ---- well at least by one company, Hagar electronics here in England.

the only bad news is the price, it isn't cheap, ---- it set me back about 250 pounds which I believe is around 400 dollars.

For more information I'd check Blind cool tech, there are some great reviews there, both of the R09 and other digital recorders as well.

claudio, not only is your above post extremely off topic, but it's also asking people to engage in theft. Given the small size of the audio games industry, stealing from our devs actually does have a fairly serious chance of stopping game developement in future (If you don't believe me, look at the reason that Bpc programs almost shut down).

I'm afraid I don't have any experience with Goldwave, but if you do manage to get an R09, the sterrio mikes make sterrio recordings very easy.

brian, I always like those space reviews especially when it's someone I've encountered on a forum or on the audeasy list. I'd quite like to do one myself, particularly sinse Van Mildert colidge might be an interesting place to wander around in audio. We've even got ducks as wel, ----- maybe we'll have to have a duck comparison!

I deffinately like the idea of a case for the rowland, but I'm slightly confused as to why plugging in the power adapter should cause the rowland to come apart, ---- I use it on power constantly (I need to buy some batteries), and have never had any trouble.

I do wonder what exactly this chap said though, sinse the Dc adapter is one of those arrangements like most laptops have, where you've got the wire from the machine going into a power box, and another wire coming out of the box to a plug. The plug and box are certainly separatable, in fact, one thing I liked about the machine is it came with two plugs, a 3pin plug like the usual English ones, and a 2pin plug like the ones used in Europe (and in the Us I believe). So, if I go abroad, all I'll need to do is pull one lead out of the power box and incert another.

Hmmmm, it sounds like some units aren't put together all that well. One of the nice thing about hagar though, is they're very good about support. A couple of times, either myself, my brother or my mum has had to send A.P.H. tape recorders back for servicing (we all have one and have used them fairly extensively), hopefuly they would do the same with the R09, should anything nasty happen.

I can certainly confirm how useful the menues tutorial is, that was one of the things that I found really helpful when doing my first Bg hearts pod cast.

Both from the research I did before I bought it, (about models like the Rowland R1), and from what I've heard sinse, I'd deffinately say the R09 is your best bet as far as recording goes.

Well, I'd certainly be interested to know what other recorders are like. I went for the R09 partly because Hagar electronics recommended it (and Hagar have never been wrong in my experience when it comes to tech), partly because when I had a play with one at site village (the Uk's anual visually assistive Tech fest), I liked it, and partly because of stuff I read on Blind cool tech and elsewhere.

One thing I will say though Andy, is that as a general rule, anything that's markited as assistive tech has it's price jacked up by at least a few hundred quid!

so, anything with speaking menues will probably be hugely more expensive than a similar device without produced by a main stream company.

At risk of otticiousness here, the worst example of such a thing was a litle infrared device, that had a sensor and remote. Stick the sensor on something you want to find, press the remote at any distance up to about 90 foot, and the sensor would bleep! Very quick and handy (I rather fancied it for marking a train seet), however the three hundred pound price tag rather put me off! (that's betwene five and six hundred dollars I believe). Imho this is extremely rediculous!

Glad you liked the manual Brian. Converting to plain text from Pdf is always a good idea, sinse I find Pdf slightly more annoying to read and search through (I've often converted Fighting fantasy books from Pdf to plane text for this reason), and reducing the file size is another bennifit. Of course you lose the illustrations and such, but it's not as if I particularly miss these anyway.

If anybody else would like me to E-mail them a copy of the R09 manual in txt, just let me know.

As to "What manual" I Mean "Thee" manual for the R09. Hagar sent me a Cd with it in Pdf format (their nice like that). If you'd like one Andy I'll send you a copy.

As to Pdf's, the Occasional trouble I've had with such things is mostly to do with columns and formatting, so sometimes you get what is obviously a line from one page immediately followed by a line from the next page on the same line, just as if wonky scanning has occurred.

then, there are annoying Pdf's that just don't have! any text to extract at all, lots of old original Fighting fantasy books and other material (including almost all backlogs of academic journals), is stored with those sorts of pdf's, which are a real! pest!

I'm fairly certain the infrared thingy didn't have speech Brian, and I believe it was especially designed and sold by the chap who was showing it off (I also saw it at site village), but it's such a good idea i'd not be surprised if there were ceveral such things out there, ----- it's just annoying that people get so greedy especially with something that symple. I have a fairly good idea how the actual circuitry in something like that would work, even though i know nothing much about electronics, it's such a symple concept.

Lol Brian! I always find myself slightly worried about getting to grips with new gagitry, but then when I start, I absolutely can't put it down!

Getting the R09 out at ten O.clock at night probably wasn't a good idea.

Having my castings of the pod quoted seems rather odd, not the least because as I said, I posted up a new one last Thursday on Blind cool tech and am hoping to do some once a week or so from now on sinse my production is finished. I've certainly got lots of things I'd like to do pod casts about, and not just game related stuff. As I said, I think an audio wander around Van Mildert colidge might be fun, and sinse it's now officially the easter holidays and thus we're at a low density of undergrads, now might be the time to do it.

Oooppse! sorry about the shameless advertising there.

I can see what Jim means about the electric razer, but sinse my own such razer is a rather posh (not to mention expensive), thing from Braun, with metal bits up the sides and one of those self-adjusting heads, it's not that similar.

I think the mobile phone things is probably closer, particularly one of those old chunky phones produced a few years ago (the ones with reasonable buttons), sinse the R09 is quite thick, though stil absolutely fine for the average pockit, ----- it's just a shame the price isn't, ;D.

Well, your odcast hasn't been put up there yet unfortunately. There haven't in fact been any updates to the site since the 23rd. But I'm hoping that with a few well-placed credit card payments the R09 can be safely in my grubby paws by July if not August. Hopefully I'll buy it in enough time to get nice and familiar with it (perhaps with a few more castings of the pod), and when class starts I can just get right down to recording.