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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: Affinity on March 22, 2011, 09:04:37 PM

Title: OST-802 Lav: Which 3.5mm mic-in recorder?
Post by: Affinity on March 22, 2011, 09:04:37 PM
I recently purchased 2 OST-802 lav mics with with 3.5mm plugs for my Zoom H1 recorders.  I subjectively compared the OST lav's to the $25 Gaint Squid lavs I had and didn't really notice much of a difference.  I'm guessing my findings are more a commentary on the recorder (or my inability to evaluate) than they are on the microphones.  The recorder I've been looking at, because of reportedly better pre-amps and noise levels, is the Sony PCM-M10.  However, I don't want to spend a few hundreds just on an experiment (i.e., will the Sony recordings be that much better than the H1's?).

Has anyone ever compared the mic in on H1 or H2 of H4N or whatever to the mic in on the Sony PCM-M10?

The reason I bought the OST-802's with the 3.5mm termination is because I wanted to avoid the cost/complexity of a wireless system. 
Title: Re: OST-802 Lav: Which 3.5mm mic-in recorder?
Post by: sunjan on March 28, 2011, 03:02:11 PM
Depends on your intended usage.
Looking at the specs of the OST-802, the frequency goes off after 16kHz, which makes them less than ideal for concert recording.
http://www.oscarsoundtech.com/services.html
The low voltage requirement made me sceptical that it would handle high SPL.
But then again, maybe you are going to use it for speech/film or similar.

Either way, M10 should have noticably cleaner gain, which will also be useful if you're going to amplify speech or ambient sounds.
If you only intend to "experiment", why don't you check which retailers offer open returns, get an m10, and if you're not happy, send it back to the shop.