Question 

I would like make audio recordings of classes and bhajans. What should i buy?

Answer

Personally i think, at this moment, the best buy is :

• Edirol R-09HR - $350 – 400
• Zoom H2 - $170-200

Other answers

iPod and others
You could use an iPod, or other standard mp3 player to record. But do not expect too much quality from that. The low quality microphone and the lack of a dedicated record button speak against it for a solid recommendation.

In the past there used to be mp3 players (hard drive based) that offered a microphone input, (like the iRiver H120, H320 and H340). But generally mp3 players only have a Line-input. This means that you need a microphone that is powered seperately because the signal of the microphone is too weak for the Line-input.

Memo and Micro Recorders
Back in the old days the only option to record your voice was either a walkman or a memo recorder. Now that times have advanced so have the memo recorders. The tape was removed and now it records digitally.

These recorders usually do a much better job than iPods and the like. Most of them have reasonable microphones and have a excellent battery life. Lots of memo recorders use standard AAA batteries and these recorders are very small in size. But there are some tradeoffs also. Most of these recorders only record in WMA format (but that is changing, see below) and the quality settings are limited. Also the internal memory is not user expandable although some more expensive models might offer this option.

Olympus is making some excellent memo recorders. They even have WAV recorders now (LS-10).

Anybody out there who wants to make a review of a memo recorder ?