DV eStore Theatre - Shotgun Shootout

It's so hard to pick a microphone based on verbage, ie. "marketing speak" while reading a catalog or web page. It's also a challenge to pick a mic based on specs alone. Heck, most of us don't know how to read the specs and don't really care to. We just want a mic that sounds good at an affordable price. We don't want to get the wrong mic. Wouldn't it be great to "try before you buy" instead of having to eBay a mic you aren't happy with? We're here to help!

We put together this blindfold test for you to listen to the high quality sound of these world class microphones - so if you only have that 1" woofer pumpin' out of your computer, quickly go get a pair of headphones!

Below you will be given the opportunity to listen to 7 of the most popular microphones for DV filmmaking. With street prices ranging from $150 to $1200, you can guess there will be a large gap in quality... or will there really be?

Listen to each microphone, you can even type in notes in the pop-up window! Then go to the microphone key to reveal the make and model of each microphone. Have fun!

About the recordings:

Each of the mics were recorded in a professional sound studio. To simulate a real-world scenario we used an off the shelf DV camera - the 3-chip Canon XL2 with built-in XLR inputs. Each mic was recorded using the same 20' XLR cable, one individual mic at a time. Bass roll-off was left on for all mics where the option was available. Levels were adjusted before recording and in post production to even output differences. No equalization was applied to any of the recordings.

A twist

One of the mics is not a shotgun. It is a hypercardiod instead of a "super cardioid." We put the hyper in the tests because we found it to be better suited for indoor situations where a shotgun may become distorted. You can find more information in this QuickTime movie here.