Best inexpensive sound for the DVX100A

[Noah Kadner]

I personally find wired lavs to have a muffled quality and limiting in terms of shot type, camera placement. They have their use but only after more traditional shotgun mics- either boomed manually or from a stand are ruled out. I’d search in that direction. You’ll likely find something AKG or Sennheiser somewhere near your price range. You’ll ultimately get much more natural sound that way.

Noah

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[Guy Mcloughlin]

Ideally for indoor work you want to use a good cardioid or hyper-cardioid pencil mic on a boom just out of the shot. Most shotgun mics under $1,000 do not work well indoors because they have poor off-axis sound rejection, thus they pick up almost as much sound from behind the mic as they do in front of the mic. Cardioid / Hyper-cardioid mics have very good off-axis sound rejection, making them the best choice for average to small rooms.

AKG Perception 170 – Small Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser Microphone

Audio-Technica AT4021 Small-Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser Microphone

AKG Blue Line Series Microphone Kit

Audio-Technica AT4053b Hypercardioid Condenser Microphone

The more expensive lav mics sound very good, and some of them like the Sanken Cos-11D sound as good as a condenser pencil mic.

Sanken COS-11D Miniature Omnidirectional Lavalier Microphone with XLR Output (Black)

…While I own a COS-11 lav, I don’t use it very often because it picks up audio from almost everywhere. ( it requires a quiet room to use it effectively )

My favorite general purpose lav mic is the TRAM 50, which has pretty good sound, and very good off-axis sound rejection if you face the mic towards the vampire-clip.

Tram TR50 – Omnidirectional Lavalier Condenser Microphone (Black) : Sennheiser Mini-plug