Hi Gary,

I'm just now seeing this thread again. The Sony digital voice recorder is the ICD-ST. It has a very good quality internal stereo mic. The software has caused no problems on my computer. I have had to get some help (I'm kind of a technophobe) on moving files from the computer to a CD. I forget the model of the Olympus (I'm not at home to check.) I never downloaded the software because the recording quality was so bad. I don't know if there is much of a price difference between the voice recorder and a minidisc recorder. If there is not, from comments here the minidisc is probably better, but other than that slight damping down of resonance, the Sony ICD-ST is quite good.

My sister, who is much more of a musician than am I, got one on the advice of another musician friend who lived out of state so they could e-mail tunes to each other. She liked it so well she got me one for Christmas last year.

Hope this is helpful.

Janie