Please help with Lav mic selection.

M

mattharris19

Member
I want use my olympus ws-500m to record with a lav mic. Its small, and I don't need to monitor. It runs off of one aaa battery. My problem is powering the lav mic. Does it have plug in power? Do I have to buy a battery powered lav? I'd really love to get the countryman b6, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
The Olympus website and user manual never explicitly state whether the WS-500M mic input has "plug-in power" or not. But judging from the recommended Olympus accessory microphones, it DOES have "plug-in power". Points off to Olympus for assuming their customers are too stupid to understand what plug-in power is.

You want to use a $400 microphone with a $50 recorder? Really? Do you want to re-consider that?

From the options offered on the Countryman web page, the Toa wireless option appears to offer a TS 3.5mm connector which might be compatible with the mic input of the WS-500M. But neither Olympus nor Countryman publish the necessary technical details to offer a anything better than a wild guess. You would have to try to find somebody at Countryman who could answer that question. (And if you do manage to do that, you can ask them why they don't explicitly say so on their website.)

There are other microphones which offer output connector options which are explicitly specified for plug-in power. For example the Rode range of lav/headset/pin mics can use the Micon-2 output connector for devices (like the Olympus voice recorder) with plug-in power. The Rode is also less expensive, features user-replaceable cables and the lav and the headset and the pin mics are all interchangeable.

"I don't need to monitor" What does that mean? It sounds like crazy talk to me.
 
I like the Rode lav and PinMic, and they run on Plug-In power. Here's a little shootout I did between 4 lavs. The PinMic is not included here, but it sounds exactly the same as the Rode Lav.
 
Richard, thank you for the reply, The reason I don't need to monitor is because this will be used for weddings. I can't walk up and adjust something during a ceremony, so as long as I set the gain right, Ill be in the same boat as an expensive wireless system. Also a cheap wired system can sound as good as an expensive wireless. I also like how small the Olympus unit is. Good catch on the suggested accessories for the Olympus, I don't think they would suggest a"plug in" power mic if the recorder didn't have it. That makes me feel a bit better. Maybe ill try a cheap Me-2 to so if it powers it and go from there. Thanks for the responses!

Chad, I loved you review, I just thought I needed battery power, which would leave me with the tram.
 
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