Shotgun Mic Shootout

I was in the market for a microphone a couple weeks ago and stumbled across this shotgun microphone shootout. Its a controlled test of seven popular shotgun mics. Its the only useful comparison I could find and this test alone convinced me that spending more money on a microphone does make a difference. Before I heard the test results I was dead set on getting the Rode NTG-2, but I was surprised to hear the Sennheiser ME-66 sounds substantially better for about $100 more. We picked up an ME-66 and its been perfect.

I have a theory that audiences are subconsciously much more critical of sound than they are of picture. The audience doesn’t understand the details of production value, but through a lifetime of viewing experience they have a subconscious checklist of attributes that are necessary to create an emotional link with the content. In my observation, sound is higher on the checklist than picture and they’ll tune out right away if the sound is rough. So a better mic on set and little extra work on the mix buys you a lot of latitude in the picture. Or so the theory goes.