Anyone know about the Spyon Electronic Listening Device? (1 Viewer)

One more question!

I bought something called the Spyon Electronic Listening Device at the sharper image. It is this parabolic dish thing that can amplify sounds from like 300 ft. away. It cost me 60 bucks. The sound amplification is pretty good, but the recording on it is usually muffled. I am debating over whether I should take it back or should I try hooking it up to a tape recorder? Could I bypass the poor quality in the Spyon's recorder by just directing the recording to a tape recorder?

Thanks!

Steelflight said:

One more question!

I bought something called the Spyon Electronic Listening Device at the sharper image. It is this parabolic dish thing that can amplify sounds from like 300 ft. away. It cost me 60 bucks. The sound amplification is pretty good, but the recording on it is usually muffled. I am debating over whether I should take it back or should I try hooking it up to a tape recorder? Could I bypass the poor quality in the Spyon's recorder by just directing the recording to a tape recorder?

Thanks!

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If the sound in real time on the headphones meets your requirements and it is just the recorded version that is poor, you can get round this by connecting the headphones out to the line-in of a recorder.

Small parabolic dishes do not collect low frequencies well, though if you are after the screech of a barn owl you are probably OK. You do need to aim them at the sound source, however, so for unattended operation you may need to try a long time till you get a call in the boresight of the dish...

An alternative with a wider acceptance, at less reach, is the ATR55

http://www.amazon.com/TECHNICA-ATR-55-Condenser-Shotgun-Microphone/dp/B00006J04Z

http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/8db33c5971d3add5/index.html

but you will need wind protection for that outside. You can DIY that

http://www.joelandkaren.com/mic-zeppelin/


The cheapest high quality recorder for your application would be a HiMD minidisc recorder. Make sure you get one with a mic input. You can get nearly 8 hours recording time in Hi-SP or 34 in Hi-LP (at a lower recording quality which is still OK for ID).

Your recorder ought to have manual record level control (HiMD recorders do, generally) Avoid any note-takers and digital voice recorders designed for meetings. MP3 players that record often record in low-quality note-taking mode so watch for that - you have to step up to the likes Iriver h120 to get decent recording which may be over budget.

Sorry if I sound really dumb... I'm just totally new to this stuff and am very ignorant!

So, your saying I could buy the ATR55 microphone, make one of those mic-zeppelin things, then leave it outside to record to a minidisc player for 8 hours? Oddly enough, I bought a Sony NetMD minidisc player about 2 years ago, and it has a mic imput and can record, so I don't have to factor that into my cost. You think I could get decent sound quality if I rigged one of these things and hoisted it up on a tree somewhere? I'm trying to think of where a good place to stash a mic/recorder might be that any joggers/walkers won't see.

Thanks a lot ermine for the detailed response-- very helpful!

Steelflight said:

You think I could get decent sound quality if I rigged one of these things and hoisted it up on a tree somewhere? I'm trying to think of where a good place to stash a mic/recorder might be that any joggers/walkers won't see.

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Your NetMD recorder will be fine, so you have the recorder sorted. I think if you record in mono one of the compression modes gives you 5 hours which isn't bad at all for your app.

The ATR55 has a cardioid mode, which picks up sound mostly from anywhere in front of the mic, which is probably about right for your needs. But since you have the recorder already, if you have a mike - even the one that came with your PC, why not have a go with what you have to get some experience of what areas you need to improve. You'll learn how much, if any, wind noise is an issue before DIYing the wind protection. Remember to set the NetMD to manual gain fairly high (it normally gets quieter at night), mic Hisens and check the forecast for a low wind - ideally < 3-4mph

I take it rain (and cold damp mornings = dew) aren't a problem in your neck of the woods? You can run the recorder in a plastic bag to safeguard that, but rain will wreck the mic if it gets into it. The standard film and TV sound recordist's solution to that is to put the mic in an (unlubricated) condom believe it or not. I've used clingfilm for the DIY electrets I have in the garden and they are into their second year now. Neither of those solutions do anything for your sound quality, but they beat having a dud mic in the morning!

Uh oh... slight problem...

I pulled my recorder out and it doesn't seem to work. I ran it up to the place I bought it and asked them about it and they said its "life is over."

So it looks like a bit of a setback before I get started. Any suggestions for a good, low-priced recorder? I've figured out what I'm going to do--> I'm going to record for an interval every night (as long as the recorder will allow me), then listen to the tape and count then number of owl calls I hear (I'm not sure if this info has any bearing on what recorder I should buy).

I will only be using this recorder for 3-4 months. Any ideas on some low-priced recorders that will get the job done? The sound quality doesn't have to be the greatest in the world... just good enough I can tell its an owl calling and not a coyote howling! Also, do you think the sound quality is mostly in the MIC? Should I be too worried about the recorder?

Thanks again for your help!

Steelflight said:

Uh oh... slight problem...

I pulled my recorder out and it doesn't seem to work. I ran it up to the place I bought it and asked them about it and they said its "life is over."

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Pull the battery and try it from the mains adapter. Put the model # in the search forums at http://www.minidisc.org/index.php. See if someone else has had the same trouble.

It just doesn't sound right. MD is a pretty mature technology now - they don't usually just stop working like that. You normally have to drop 'em or sit on them to break a MD deck - I haven't had one fail on me yet. But if you don't use it for a while you can have trouble getting charge into the Li-Ion battery.

Anyway, if it really is broken, look for a HiMD (not NetMD) deck on ebay. Make sure it has a mic input - some low end models don't. Check the model features against the information here. I got a MZ-NH700 from ebay for about $80 a while back.

There isn't really anything cheaper that is fit for this purpose. Avoid voice recorders, cheapo MP3 players claiming to record WAV (they are voice recorders until you get up to the Iriver hxxx series which is out of your budget)

Then I might have to change my project around because I don't have much money I'm a broke college student.

Before I totally change the direction of this project...

I was at Circuit City the other night, and they had something called an "Olympus Digital Voice Recorder." I was considering buying one of them (40 bucks), then buying a nice shotgun mic and hooking it up to it. Would this pick up barn owl screams?

Thanks a lot for taking the time to help me ermine . I've left posts on some other forums but nobody else has been so kind to help me! Thanks!

I know you said to avoid voice recorders, but I'm not looking for quality sound to import onto my computer and analyze. I just need to be able to know how often the owl is screaming each night... so you think a digital recorder might pick it up?

Steelflight said:

I know you said to avoid voice recorders, but I'm not looking for quality sound to import onto my computer and analyze. I just need to be able to know how often the owl is screaming each night... so you think a digital recorder might pick it up?

Click to expand...

No, save your trouble and watch TV instead. It ain't gonna cut it By all means give it a go if you have one already, but if you are going to buy one especially for this project then buy yourself a few beers instead - you'll get better use of the money. Obviously if the owl calls two feet away you'll get it, but digital voice recorders are designed for nearby voice, not massive range

You've already complained about the muffled quality of the Spyon device's recording quality. That's what you'll get with a digital voice recorder, but with a worse mic - it's probably a digital voice recorder chip in the Spyon. DVRs usually have a very limited recording time. I use one of these (olympus VN-120PC) for notes while birding. I'm hard pushed to even recognize a sparrow on it, and it is terribly sensitive to wind noise. And they always quote the max recording time in the lowest record quality available. Which is virtually unintelligible for speech. So my VN-120 is actually a 60 min recorder, if you have the ambition of being able to understand what the heck you said into it!

Ebay may be your friend in searching of a MD deck at the price you want, people often trade them there. It's a question of spending the time until you get a good price. Avoid the HiMD MZ-NH600 of which there are a couple - this thing doesn't have a mic input!