[Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice recorder

Wed May 18 02:22:48 UTC 2011

I asume you've checked out radio shack?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Oso Calmo" <osocalmo at yahoo.co.jp>
To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances" 
<electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
recorder

> Thank you, all.
>
> Well, in fact, I'm not looking for a voice recorder developed specially 
> for the blind, because they tend to be much more expensive than normal 
> ones and tend to have less functions, sorry.  In that sense, the Olympus 
> voice recorder might be the best one for me if real improvements have been 
> made. But, still, it seems very professional, has many functions I don't 
> need and is twice or three times the price I would like to pay.
>
> I'm looking for a cheap voice recorder that everyone can afford and 
> everyone can use.  There are very cheap voice recorders, let's say $30 or 
> $40, which have just the basic recording functions, but I wonder if 
> someone knows about one which is accessible for us and also that connects 
> to the computer by a USB port.
> I know about the Victor Reader, Milestone, etc, but I don't want to pay 4 
> or 10 times more, just for a simple voice recorder that would function 
> like a ordinary tape recorder.
> About 14 years ago, someone gave me, for my birthday, an ordinary voice 
> recorder.  It was wonderful!  It didn't speak out the functions of the 
> buttons, but I could use it perfectly well and comfortably.  I didn't need 
> voice feedback every time I pressed a button and the absence of such a 
> feedback made it much faster.
> It had normal rather small buttons and the functions of the buttons were 
> very easy to learn and remember.  It was almost like a tape recorder. 
> Memory was expensive by that time, so I could only record for about 15 
> minutes and it didn't have USB interface.  It costed less than $100.
> Nowadays, I think, there must be some voice recorder with just basic 
> functions easy for the blind to use, as a result, with USB interface, with 
> more recording capacity and perhaps a bit cheaper.
> Does someone know about such a device?
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dewey Bradley" <deweyspr at mediacombb.net>
> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances" 
> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 8:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
> recorder
>
>
>> The VR stream does work quite nice though, but most blind people can't 
>> afford it, I'm lucky to live in Missouri I guess, but I think even are 
>> library has stopped giveing them out, that's what sucks about it, it is 
>> made for us, but we can't aford it.
>> O Well
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
>> To: "Discussion of accessible electronics andappliances" 
>> <electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 6:32 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
>> recorder
>>
>>
>>> At 09:27 AM 5/17/2011, you wrote:
>>>>Has the victor gone up that much? I bought mine 3 years ago and it was 
>>>>339.
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 9:21:20 am
>>>>To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances" 
>>>><electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>>From: "Frida Aizenman" <aizenman at earthlink.net>
>>>>Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice 
>>>>recorder
>>>>
>>>>No, the Stream is $329 as it always was.  I believe what was meant was 
>>>>the Book Sense from Hymms, the upper model, the XT I think it is called, 
>>>>is $449.
>>>
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I come kicking and screaming onto the 21st century. LOL.
>>>>Never before in my life, had I had a digital recorder. As far as I am
>>>>concern, for now, the Olympus DM520 Digital Recorder with Talking Menus 
>>>>is
>>>>as good as it gets. It costs $195. Give or take, the Milestone 12 costs
>>>>$400. The Victor Reader costs $449. Sure, it has more features, but at 
>>>>the
>>>>moment, I don't need more. As the saying goes, "You get what you pay 
>>>>for."
>>>>And don't forget that the next time you want the same product, it might 
>>>>not
>>>>be around anymore. You no longer can get a Milestone 11 any more. Of 
>>>>course,
>>>>that is not all bad, because sometimes you find a better product.
>>>>The only thing not accessible on the Olympus DM520 is being able to set 
>>>>the
>>>>time and date by yourself. According to the podcast I listen to, and 
>>>>learned
>>>>from, the blind community worked with Olympus on accessibility for this
>>>>product.
>>>>The podcast can be found at:
>>>>Blind Cool Tech Podcast
>>>>
>>>>http://www.blindcooltech.com/
>>>>and then link on
>>>>Olympus DM520 And DM420
>>>>Also, if you go to the Olympus Company at:
>>>>olympusamerica.com/support
>>>>the manual is on a type of PDF that is inaccessible.
>>>>----- Original Message -----
>>>>From: "Oso Calmo" <osocalmo at yahoo.co.jp>
>>>>To: "Discussion of accessible electronics and appliances"
>>>><electronics-talk at nfbnet.org>
>>>>Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 7:48 PM
>>>>Subject: Re: [Electronics-talk] Looking for a cheap accessible voice
>>>>recorder
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > Thank you, Frida, for telling me your experience.  In fact, I'm 
>>>> > looking
>>>> > for a much cheaper one: let's say $50 or $60.  There are lots of 
>>>> > cheap
>>>> > voice recorders, but either they are not accessible or they don't 
>>>> > have
>>>> > computer interface.
>>>> >
>>>> > Is your Olympus voice recorder really good?
>>>> > In fact, I had a sad experience last year when I tried
>>>> > dm-4.  The menues talked but not all the time (all the items). 
>>>> > Sometimes
>>>> > I had to wait a lot for the voice to come and there were some 
>>>> > instances
>>>> > where it didn't speak.  So, I thought that I would have to remember 
>>>> > all
>>>> > the instances it didn't talk to be able to use it comfortably.  There 
>>>> > were
>>>> > some instances when I had no idea about what was happening unless I 
>>>> > ask
>>>> > someone to look at the screen.
>>>> > Also, I could use daisy to some extent, but it seems that to be able 
>>>> > to do
>>>> > fine jumps, etc, you have to rely on the screen.  I couldn't install 
>>>> > the
>>>> > software to easily exchange files with my computer, even using the 
>>>> > latest
>>>> > version of JAWS.  Jaws couldn't speak any dialogs of the installer 
>>>> > and I
>>>> > couldn't read them even in review cursor mode.  So I needed sighted
>>>> > assistance to have it installed.
>>>> >
>>>> > Its sound quality is very good and it has lots of interesting 
>>>> > functions;
>>>> > so I really wanted to be able to use it and buy one, but I got tired. 
>>>> > I
>>>> > downloaded the manual from the internet and it was really difficult 
>>>> > to
>>>> > read, too: very specific and, as a result, full of repetitions, 
>>>> > absolutely
>>>> > easy to read for a sighted person, because they can easily jump to 
>>>> > the
>>>> > desired item and have all the information they need there, skipping 
>>>> > the
>>>> > t
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
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