Dictaphones

Æthelred

I need a dictaphone for this Monday and I've never used one before. Does anyone here have any experience with the devices? I'm having a browse on Amazon and the like, but I'm not really sure what I'm looking for in the specifications. Olympus and Sony seem to be the main brands; is one better than the other? How good does the range and ambient noise filtering tend to be on them? Any help would be appreciated; if all else fails I'll just go for Amazon's first result.

Feral

We use Olympus voice recorders at work. The ambient noise filtering is okay, it'll take out anything dull and constant (like ventilation) but don't expect it to take out background chatter. Range is suitable for a small conference room or interviewing somebody across a table.

Æthelred

Interviewing someone across a table is exactly what I'll be doing. But I don't know how big the table is going to be. :P Thanks for the input. I'll ask to play with a couple of Olympus models at a department store when I go shopping later this week. The main thing is to test it a lot beforehand so I don't accidentally not put it on record, or have it not picking anyone's voices up; especially since I won't be able to test it at the location. I should be okay.