My own experience echoes what's been written above. Although the NT4 has a "nice" sound with a clear, bright top end which isn't too ragged, it does have serious practical limitations. For a start it's large & heavy & a bit of a one trick pony. With the built-in battery, the NT4 is useful for a portable rig if you want to put a stereo mic in a blimp, & go straight to a handheld recorder with no extra boxes; but even then the weight is excessive and it's rather front heavy so difficult to balance. I like the clarity of this mic for distant acoustic sources, but I've hardy used mine in recent years since there aways seems to be a better option.
For use indoors on a stand, I'd much sooner go for a pair of NT5s (same cardioid capsule). With a few threaded adaptors & a stereo bar you can vary the mic angle to point directly at PA stacks etc and introduce some spacing (ORTF, NOS, or just experiment) which gives a way better spatial effect, especially if you ever intend to play back though headphones. With the NT5 you also have the option of buying the omni capsules to swap in. All in all, it's a much more flexible system. I just checked B&H, & a matched pair of NT5s is currently about $100 cheaper than an NT4. That's money towards a phantom power adapter or even one of the newer handheld recorders with XLR inputs. So something to think about...
Topic: Rode NT4 (Read 2780 times)