Tom Hamilton:Samson Zoom H2 Review
eMicrophones has been providing the Samson H2 handy recorder/microphone for several months. The vast majority of purchasers are one of two groups. Either local musical bands who want to record their concerts or business people/lawyers who need to record a conference. Our testing found this item is not appropriate for speech recognition purposes.
Martin
We can understand why you don't recommend the Samson Zoom H2 24 bit digital recorder for speech recognition purposes on your website and we would agree that the Zoom H2 is not ideally suited to that task but we believe the H2 has a place in the speech recognition community. Note that we ONLY CARRY speech recognition products on our website and the reason why we are introducing the Zoom H2 to the speech recognition world is because we found this recorder to be acceptable as a combination desktop Voice Array microphone and a 24-bit digital recorder for anyone who needs both on a $200 budget. NaturallySpeaking cannot transcribe 24-bit recordings but can transcribe MP3 recordings. However, DNS transcription is nowhere near the quality levels of transcription dedicated professional digital recorders such as the “soon-to-land in second-place” Philips 9600 or the soon-to-be King of digital recorders, the Olympus DS-5000 (which we will be posting a review first on the KnowBrainer Digital Recorder Forum.
We would only recommend the H2 for light direct MP3 transcription but found the unit worked reasonably well as a Voice Array microphone and even bested the $345 Acoustic Magic Voice Tracker which costs considerably more. We basically recommend this recorder for someone who needs a combination Voice Array microphone and an MP3 recorder for occasional transcription use and a 24-bit recorder for frequent conference and lecture usage for Echo Dictating. At $200, you can't beat the price and we felt there was a need for something in this price range. We have also had several requests for this speech recognition option.
Lunis Orcutt - Developer of KnowBrainer & Host of the Http://www.KnowBrainer.com Speech Recognition Forum A Nuance Gold Certified Endorsed Dragon NaturallySpeaking Vendor ALWAYS Ask If Your Speech Recognition Vendor Is Nuance Certified
KnowBrainer:Note that we ONLY CARRY speech recognition products on our website
Sincerely,Martin
According to you you've been selling Zoom H2 digital recorder for several months but you claim it shouldn't be used for speech recognition. From our point of view it looks like you're selling at least one non-speech recognition product.
KnowBrainer:According to you you've been selling Zoom H2 digital recorder for several months but you claim it shouldn't be used for speech recognition. From our point of view it looks like you're selling at least one non-speech recognition product.
The Samson is listed under Conference Audio/Handheld recorders. Lawyers and court reporters use them to record depositions as well as record conferences. They must recognize the recorded speech on playback as a legal record.