Analogue versus digital voice recording

There can be little avoiding the fact that digital voice recording has significant advantages over analogue voice recording. Advantages of digital over analogue include:

• Superior sound quality, without the inherent hiss you get from magnetic tapes.
• The ability to record for far longer – digital sound files aren't restricted in duration as tapes are.
• Digital sound files do not physically break, as tapes can.
• Copying such files involves no deterioration of quality.
• Easy editing. You can insert additional recorded information wherever you like in an existing recording.
• The files can be sent instantly with an email. Plus no postage costs.
   

That said, analogue dictation machines are yet to disappear. Some of us still feel a little insecure when it comes to digital technology. You can hold a cassette in your hand but a digital sound file is rather more abstract. This is a serious issue when it comes to data security and confidentiality, both important in the context of voice recording. Someone being interviewed in confidence may not feel that happy about their voice being recorded digitally and saved on a file that can be pinged across the ether. The age of total confidence in Internet security is yet to dawn. On a practical level some are simply used to doing things in a relatively outmoded way and are quite happy to continue thus. Or certain systems may be in place that require you to provide tapes rather than digital files.

So until the cassette-less office triumphs absolutely, we at Paperstone will continue to cater for both analogue and digital dictation needs.