m200 voice recording differences

[greg_m]

I've just started researching this recently for an oral history project. I'm looking for a very small recorder that uses primary (AA or AAA) cells rather than soldered internal battery. I would greatly appreciate any good information from the m200 community.

All these comments relate to Voice Recordings made on the m200 series.

I have an old m240 that records WAV files with ADPCM encoding, 1 channel, 4 bits/sample, 8kHz sample freq., 32kbps bitrate. (IMHO not useable audio quality.) According to Sansa CS department, all m200 series record with those same settings.

However, I recently spotted an m250 on eBay, and when the owner sent me a sample file, I found it was significantly different: IMA-ADPCM encoding, 24kHz sample freq., 97kbps bitrate! (IMHO quite useable quality for voice.)

Unfortunately, I did not win that bid, but based on that sample file, I purchased another m250. Alas, it has 8kHz sample freq., the same as my m240.

Upon further searching, I found an old thread on this board wherein the OP reported having an m250 that has a 32kHz sample freq.! Thus, it appears there may be as many as three different sampling frequencies in the m200 series. (All machines appear to produce mono WAV files encoded using 4-bit ADPCM.)

I would greatly appreciate input from anyone on this board who has an m200 series machine. Here's the data I would like to accumulate:

First, the model number and firmware version of your machine.

Second, specific information about the file:

(Move the file to your PC, right-click on the file, select Properties, then Summary, then Advanced if necessary. Then please post the following:

1.) Bitrate
2.) Audio sample size
3.) Channels
4.) Audio sample rate
5.) Audio format.

A posted audio sample file would be wonderful, but isn't absolutely necessary.

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to participate in this research project!