Olympus LS-10 (2008)
A camera company entered the portable recorder market with a unit that fit in a shirt pocket, and broadcasters had a use for it.
Overview
The first thing anyone notices pulling an LS-10 out of the box is the aluminum body. It's light enough to forget it's in your hand, under six ounces by the accounts of the broadcast technicians who field-tested it. It's small enough that pocketing it doesn't produce what one reviewer charitably called a Spinal Tap-esque bulge. Olympus launched it at the NAMM show in January 2008. Sound on Sound (June 2008, p.88) noted that this was the latest entry into portable stereo recording from a company the world knew for cameras and accessories. The recorder shipped with two snap-on windscreens, a zippered cloth case with a storage pocket, and a wrist strap.
The headline spec is 24-bit/96kHz linear PCM, uncompressed WAV capture, alongside MP3 and WMA recording and playback. Storage is 2GB internal, with an SD/SDHC slot that takes cards up to 32GB. The MP3 format stretches the internal memory past 35 hours of recording. A 3.5mm stereo mic jack sits on the side, and a separate 3.5mm stereo line input accepts a +6dBv signal. Mic sensitivity switches between high (59dBv) and low (39dBv). The twin 16mm stereo speakers at the top of the body are angled 90 degrees apart, which helps with interview recording, since questions and responses land with real stereo separation instead of mono smear. A camera tripod thread on the bottom lets the unit mount directly for performance capture. A connector between the mics accepts an optional infrared remote receiver, so recording can be started from across a room.
The controls are the part that wins people over. Thumb wheels down the sides handle input and output volume, and switches nearby set mic sensitivity and engage Automatic Gain Control. The backlit LCD runs a reasonably large bar-graph meter alongside status information. The menu is a vertical list of symbols down the left edge with submenus in the main area. Sound on Sound (June 2008, p.90) walked through that structure and found the display notably larger than the Edirol R09's. An A-B Repeat button loops a section of playback, which makes transcription less painful and nailing a guitar lick considerably easier. Recording takes two presses. One press arms the unit and flashes a red ring around the record button, and a second press starts capture with the ring steady red. A broadcast technician writing in Radio magazine found that part-time promotions assistants new to broadcasting learned the whole machine without difficulty.
That same field report says the most about the LS-10's actual job. Sent out with a promotions team to gather station promos and interview winners, the recorder made listeners more willing to talk than a large flagged microphone did. Some were simply intrigued by the thing. The killer application came on an anniversary cruise. Rather than cancel a broadcast over a bad phone line or missing ISDN, the station pre-recorded breaks, star interviews, and island ambience on the LS-10 and sent it all back edited and ready to air. It runs on two AA batteries or an optional DC supply, connects over USB with the supplied cable, works as an MP3 player and external storage device, and plays nicely with Windows Media Player and iTunes. Olympus bundled Cubase LE4 on DVD, with 48 tracks plus plug-ins and effects, and the LS-10 carries its own built-in reverb.
Now the compromises. There are no XLR/TRS jacks, only the 3.5mm stereo mic input, which puts the LS-10 on the consumer-connector side of the line. The stereo mics are fixed in position. Olympus compensated with a processing mode it called DiMagic Virtual Microphone, which Sound on Sound (June 2008, p.90) described as focusing on sound from a chosen direction. Headphones for private monitoring weren't included. Pricing landed around £250 at announcement. Radio magazine's field reporter called it a must-have for any facility, with the caveat that field reports are industry-run tests and no endorsement by the magazine.
EQ Magazine (September 2008, p.56) handed the LS-10 its "power management of the year" award, praised the built-in mics and the speaker for monitoring that most competitors lacked, and flagged the real limitation: memory can't be expanded or replaced beyond the SD slot route, though the unit does let you password-protect individual files. The fixed mic array and the 3.5mm-only input are the two things that keep it from being a universal tool — a role one reviewer reserved for a different machine entirely. What the LS-10 does instead is disappear into a pocket and come back with clean 24/96 audio, which is precisely what a lot of people actually needed.
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