Hi, Shai,

Maybe you had better luck with these than I did. I looked at one a while 
ago and I bought a used mini/micro transcriber (I think Dictaphone) and 
other than not working well, the hum level was higher than I'd like on 
it. Since the machine was pretty annoying on many levels, I did not try 
adding capacitors or a filtered supply. I think I still have it. The 
nice thing is that it also attempted to do mini-cassettes (which are 
rim-drive (capstanless)) but I found the speed to be as annoying as 
running them on a capstan machine...it was just different. Fortunately, 
Elastic Audio in Samplitude lets me fix the speed fairly quickly. One of 
the unique features in Diamond Cut audio software (one of the reasons I 
keep it around) is it has a spline-curve speed trajectory program that's 
pretty good for these things, though the hassle of chaning DAWs for the 
project usually has me fixing it in Elastic Audio.

To that end, when I have not pulled the tape out, I have an Olympus and 
a Realistic (Radio Shack) hand-held and both sound as good or better 
than the transcriber. Neither sound as good as the Dragon (but we're not 
surprised). The handhelds are more than adequate, however, and since 
they're running off batteries then there is little chance of hum (except 
picking it up through the repro head).

Cheers,

Richard

On 2013-04-20 2:33 PM, Shai Drori wrote:
> Hi Tyra
> Here are some options on eBay right now.
> Shai
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-RR-930-Microcassette-Transcriber-Dictation-Machine-With-Foot-Pedal-/360638716662?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53f7be1af6 
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-RR-930-Micro-Cassette-Transcriber-Machine-w-Foot-Pedal-/251262957848?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a80707918 
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/DICTAPHONE-3720-Microcassette-Transcriber-W-Foot-Pedal-Microphone-AC-Adapter-/281085867081?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item417205f449 
>
>

-- 
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada                             647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.