Dear All, Thanks very much for your responses. Upon reading the posts I realized there was one detail I should have added: when not in use I usually keep the recorder inside a small Otterbox box, with some padding wrapped around it as well. I'll look out for a neoprene sleeve and some non alkaline batteries the next time I"m somewhere where they available, and I'll get a male male line in cord as well. I already have audacity, so that sounds like it would be a good fix. I'll also try re-importing the same files with wav disabled. again, thank you very much! regards, Kedara