Did Shure Fix The MVX2u?, Handheld vs. Studio Condensers, and more (BSP-389)

I clicked this thinking it was a 4 minute video and ended up entertained by a man and his giant suppository for 40.

14:55 honestly, both handheld microphones have the exact same background noise rejection, pretty impressive.

will be waiting for your final MVX2u video, really interesting if they fixed noise floor as well. thanks Bandrew!

Thing with background noise rejection or isolation is that there are indeed multiple factors. Take the Lauten LS 208 into account. Condenser that promises to have as good of an isolation as dynamics. There a couple methods they do this. First of all, you often only see the polar pattern in the spec sheet how it is measured at 1khz. Often Cardioid mics have an almost wide cardioid polar pattern in the low end like my Lewitt 440 DM, and more of a super cardioid ish pattern at 20khz. That means that my LS 208 has way better background noise performance. Another thing is if they leave some room for the capsule, like actual air/empty space. Look at the LS 208, or the Austrian Audio OD5 and OC7. All of them have empty space in between the capsule and electronics or just hollow space behind as with the Austrian Audio mics. Cinemas do this were you enter an empty room between each room because of isolation and similar things happen here. And for better or worse, the SM58 is an old mic design. I would argue that newer mics perform better within mentioned categories as long as they apply to the same use case. In case you read this thank you for your attention and great day to you Bandrew!

Agree with you about lack of exciting tech lately. I've noticed that too on my end. Just not much to talk about. I think the last time I was super excited was when they released the Zoom F3 about 2 years ago. Haven't seen anything that exciting since :D

Danke! Well, you're right, I could do something else (not better) instead of watching your entertaining and helpful content. I regularly make the decision to watch your content, though. I will do something else, not instead but afterwards. During May I'm lucky to work on the Isle of Usedom in the Baltic see (the German part of it). Life could be much worse than working at a place where others spend their holidays.

good lord that's a big microphone

I had to house/pet sit and the office area in in an attic A-frame style large open space. I brought my Zoom F6 to use as an audio interface and the SM58 with the shure shock mount and foam cover. Shocked at how great it sounds in this echo chamber. It was hot so i needed to turn on an oscillating fan and it doesnt pick it up either.

Did a segment on the MVX2U paired up with the RE20 and the Osmo Pocket 3. Sounded great to me.

Thanks!

When we send in questions, can we request they be answered by Furture Bandrew? Nothing against Past Bandrew, I just like Future Bandrew's style more.

Thank you for talking about dynamic vs. condenser mics with regard to ambience pickup because I'm also curious about that topic! Another factor I suggest considering is polar pattern at different frequencies because reflections may get picked up at different angles at different levels. Some mics have a consistent pickup pattern across their frequency response, while some mics have varying pickup patterns depending on the frequencies. For example, the new Shure NXN8s use two mic capsules to achieve a consistent pickup pattern to get "less unwanted environmental noise" according to Shure (BTW I wonder how similarly or differently they perform against Austrian Audio OD505, which also uses two mic capsules for similar reasons I would assume. Maybe a good idea for next versus series episode??). If you look at the polar pattern diagrams of SM58, KMS105, and U87 Ai, you can tell U87 Ai has quite different pickup patterns between 125 and 16K Hz, while SM58 seems to have bit more consistent pickup pattern, and KMS105 has the most consistent pickup pattern of the three mics you tried. Also, I wonder if dynamic mics exhibit some sort of damping effect caused by a diaphragm much heavier than that of condenser mics. Perhaps slower transient response could cancel out some part of incoming sound wave?

Kinda shocked at how good the Neumann handheld was at rejection. I wonder if that's magic specific to Neumann or more commonto handheld condensers in general. Would love to see more detailed comparisons, and roping in other mic types and SDCs in particular – I've wondered for a while if they might just be the best audio quality per dollar, what with a little of great ones sneaking under $200.

Geez, I'd forgotten how utterly MASSIVE the SM5B is with the foam on! Big hitter, the Lama.

Soooo. I just bought 2 MVX2us and updated both to the 1.2.0 firmware and I can confirm that there is this really nasty crackling sound not only when handling, but also and mainly when adjusting input gain in the software. For such a high priced item this is completely unacceptable. It is also not the noise constant hissing noise problem that you can clearly hear at the 6 minute mark on Leo Huang's video "Shure MVX2U Review - I want my money back" when he is speaking and also when he is silent. I have tested it on 2 PCs and also used the interface on an Android phone to record a sentence and you can hear it there, TOO. I tested with the Behringer SL75C and the SM7B. Will be sending these back if I don't hear anything from Shure soon.

The SM5B windscreen can be your wife! On a serious note....really enjoy that honkin' thing on camera, just a fun mic.

Just imagine if the trendy creators had been captured by the SM5B instead of the SM7B, so much content would look even weirder than it currently does. It would be like when a dog does a snoopy into a camera. Bandrew's use of in ear headphones had the additional affect of allowing us to see his ears. There's not many podcasters online doing that. I thought hats and headphones were mandatory for success. That crackle could easily be a poor connection either on the plugs or inside on the soldering. Though it's odd that restarting fixed it, when it had been persistent like a physical fault. Unless during the restart you moved some or all of the connections. If not then it's a bit weird. That strange behaviour on the usb interface is almost as odd as your recent observation on the MV7+. Both seem too easy to reproduce for a product from an established quality manufacturer. We would hope. It's not like either are a curious edge case. Or say strange effects from overloading another part of the device, like say insufficient usb power, or headphones that draw too much current. Hmm, actually now I wonder if either device might be better behaved if using very different headphones/usb ports/usb powered hub? It is a known thing that for example usb3 ports play badly with some RF devices such a home automation radios (eg. Zigbee transceivers). And there's been a few (budget) combo mics where the noise from the usb side bleeds into the xlr, and I've wondered if thats also why the podmic usb doesn't allow you to use both outputs at once. Perhaps Rode couldn't get the fidelity they wanted so they disabled it.

The U87 is almost useless for me due to traffic noise. I would like to hear a full test of this. Also maybe include a good shotgun.

The removal of the like/dislike counts is a crime. Not only does it help you judge whether a video is worth your time, it also helps me avoid giving any view seconds to low-effort, bloated videos created purely to monetize. I can generally divide all the YouTube videos I watch into two groups. 1. Stuff I subscribe to or see on the front page of YouTube. This is entertainment. 2. Stuff I search for to learn something or answer a question. For type two, it is absolutely disgusting, abusive, exploitative, and reprehensible to not have the dislike ratio available before I reward some scumbag with view time.

YouTube has become a weird place. I now have to swear at least once during a video to avoid having YouTube classifying one of my videos as "Made for Kids", which makes me uncomfortable as I don't like needless swearing. But I guess in this case it's not needless as it serves a specific practical purpose? I make videos about Bluey and other cartoons, but for an adult audience. (Yes, adults can like cartoons as well.) YouTube still has one of my videos set as "Made for Kids" where I show a clip from the gory nightmare sequence from the German movie Felidae, and drug usage in the Spanish film Bird Boy. This was before I started deliberately adding a swear to videos.