As a bit of an experiment, I tried doing some recordings today with the recorder on my MP3 player, a Sansa Clip 2GB:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sandisk-Pla...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1243076709&sr=1-2
You can get this for around £30 in the UK. I was quite surprised to see that the voice recordings are done in Wav format and when I've used it for this the recordings seemed to be of reasonable quality.
Conditions weren't too good for recording this morning, with plenty of wind. Most birds I recorded were fairly close, around 10-15 metres distance. I've attached some of the less windy results as follows:
1. A Whitethroat calling, with Dunnock singing in the background
2. A Whitethroat singing
3. A Meadow Pipit singing (with quite a bit of wind on the recording)
I've removed some of the low frequency wind noise with Audacity and have boosted the gain a bit in this too (about +9). I think the results are okay, and are certainly fine for identification. They sound a bit 'tinny' so are not very good aesthetically, but they're loud enough. I suspect I could stick a small microphone cover on it to help reduce wind noise.
I bought this MP3 player to use for playback. It seems good for that because it's cheap and small, has a clear screen, is easy and quick to navigate and has a volume control button. The recorder certainly makes it a bit more useful for birding purposes.
NB: Is there any chance of moderators moving this thread to the recording equipment forum?