Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

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Toobad
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Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Toobad »

For those of you who don't visit the CT Forums, I thought I'd just give a heads up to a thread I started over there. I was intrigued by the fact Ebay seems to be awash with Chinese branded condenser studio mics at ridiculously cheap prices. On the basis that things which appear too good to be true generally are, I decided it was worth a tickle to drop some coin to find out. I have done a China vs. USA comparison video pitting the young pretender against my megabucks HeilSound PR-40 dynamic mic. So if anybody here is looking to improve their audio on a shoestring budget, have a wander over to CT. My vid is in a public access sub-forum so you don't have to be a member and there is a link back to the original thread where you can find sourcing and other relevant info.

http://s3.zetaboards.com/copythat/topic/7738595/1/#new
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by astradyne »

Link to eBay please :D
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Tigersaw »

Thank you for the time and effort.
I'ver just listened to the recordings using only the cheese o matic tinny speaker on the work PC, so will try again later.
However, for the small moneys it sounds a brilliant investment
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Otter »

astradyne wrote:Link to eBay please :D
Just do an ebay search for Shengyue BM-800. Oh, OK, I'll do it for you <link>
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Toobad »

This is the exact one I bought for the comparison test. It currently weighs in at just over £19 delivered.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Condenser ... e#shpCntId

My 8 individual uncompressed audio clips can be downloaded from here for all you purists out there:

http://s3.zetaboards.com/copythat/singl ... &t=7738595
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Kaos »

I have one of these to from E-Bay seller Millionshare. £16.50 BIN and it works a treat.

Image

Make sure its got the 1.5v battery otherwise you will need a phantom power supply.

Image
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by ROTEL240 »

Thanks for the demo and the link but how hard or easy would these boom mics to wire into a superstar, cobra , optima etc thanks.
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Black_Pirate »

Yes I,d like to know the basics of wiring one of these up...
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Toobad »

Essentially the 3-pin XLR connector is wired with pins 1 and 3 connected to the shield and pin 2 carrying the mic audio. You will need to add a 2-wire PTT solution either by footswitch or separate handswitch. So you will end up with 4 wires going into the traditional Foster mic plug which connects to the CB.
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Tigersaw »

Interesting the one you purchase and link to uses a 1.5 battery, whereas I find many of the same looking and equally numbered BM-800 ones on Amazon all require phantom power; in fact many reviews slate them for not being able to use with a laptop for instance.
Does it have a on/off switch associated with the battery, or do you have to take it out when not in use?
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by FAFFER »

Looks good! Might be worth a punt at that money! :)
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by astradyne »

Black_Pirate wrote:Yes I,d like to know the basics of wiring one of these up...
I'd plug it directly into my Melos and use that to drive the audio. TX is via a PTT button or a footswitch.

They're amazingly cheap if bought from China. Less than £13 with free P&P if you have the patience to wait.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Sound-Stu ... 1481939177
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Toobad »

Tigersaw wrote:Interesting the one you purchase and link to uses a 1.5 battery, whereas I find many of the same looking and equally numbered BM-800 ones on Amazon all require phantom power; in fact many reviews slate them for not being able to use with a laptop for instance.
Does it have a on/off switch associated with the battery, or do you have to take it out when not in use?
Dave, as I said in the video, there are many brands but essentially only 2 variants. I specifically hunted down a Shengyue because it required onboard power. It just seemed a lot less faffing. Because it only requires 1.5V I think it is safe to assume it is powering an electret capsule. People buying the brands requiring phantom power of anything up to the 48V a mixer usually supplies will be getting what is probably viewed as a "true" condenser mic. Not that there is anything wrong with electret condenser mics, in fact 95% of Shure's range is now based around electret capsules.
And no, it doesn't have an on/off switch, you would have to take the battery out for long term storage although I doubt it is beyond the collective knowledge of FADARS to rig up a switching solution ;)

On a side note, I recorded the video using the Shengyue BM-800 plugged into the external mic socket of a Nikon D600 dSLR camera. I think you'll agree the recorded sound is even better on the voiceover than that recorded for the samples via my FT-DX3000.
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by ROTEL240 »

Thanks again for the info lads worth looking into at that price.
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Re: Brand new studio mics for under £20!!

Post by Tigersaw »

Toobad wrote: although I doubt it is beyond the collective knowledge of FADARS to rig up a switching solution ;)
.
I think you are mixing up Folkstone and Fareham :)
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