Roland Binaural Microphones/Earphones (CS-10EM)

Colmó mis expectativas

I've only had these mics for a couple days, but I've already fallen in love with them. The stereo image you get when recording with them is absolutely amazing. Being blind, I prefer to get good, clear audio rather than a picture of things, and these mics fit the bill very well. I do wish, however, that the windscreens that come with the mics were a bit fluffier, so as to guard against higher windspeeds and protect more against this. Aside from that, they are amazing for the price point, and i'd highly recommend them for those who love to get that 3-d audio experience when making stereo recordings.A couple notes to those curious about these mics:1. They will work with recorders like the olympus ls10, ls14, ls100, zoom h1, h2, h2N, h4,h4N, roland r05, r09 and r09HR.2. With most binaural mics, when speaking into the mics while wearing them, you get what I like to call a "headspace" sound, which makes your voice sound slightly muffled and hard to understand at times. This is not present on these microphones, at least as far as I can tell.3: For any blind customers looking to purchace these mics: When you get them, it may be a bit tricky to tell which side is the left and which is the right. There's a neet little way of figuring this out. Since the earbuds are off center from the mics, you can find which one goes in the right or left ear. Also note that to wear them the right way around, the mics must angle outwards slightly when looking at them from the back, so to speak..4: in the package you have two different sizes of extra tips for the earbuds. I recommend using the larger size, so as to provide a better fit inside the ear.5: If you're going to record outside with these mics, use the windscreens so as to try and protect against wind noise.

I just got mine in the mail, was totally excited, only to find that the sound is clipping even at moderate levels. Maybe I need a better recording device? Same clipping happening on an old Olympus voice recorder and on my Zoom H4N. Hopefully someone has some advice on this, otherwise I'm sending these back stat.UPDATE: I went ahead and purchased a Roland R-07 to insure compatibility and now everything is copacetic. Staying at 4 stars instead of 5 for the seeming incompatibility with other recording units, but I'm glad to own the R-07 now, which is also quite nice (although I'd prefer a full-sized SD card instead of the mini, and I wish it came with the USB cable it requires).

I've put these headphones through their paces. I'm teaching myself A/V stuff as I go making travel videos and these things are absolute beasts for their size and price. I'm recording through a Zoom H1N, make sure you don't assume that your H1N can auto level while you have these in your ears or you'll make yourself deaf from feedback!! The quality of the audio is fantastic (for my level of use and appreciation anyway, I'm sure there are audio engineers who scoff at it.)Make sure to also keep track of your levels regularly. It's easy to pop these bad boys in and throw your recorder in your pocket and just go, but I've found that these can max out relatively easy if you adjusted your gain for a quiet area and then walk near a street and forget to lower your gain (bad idea!)

I have a Tascam DR-60D field recorder and these work great with that unit. You plug the red mic plug into input 3/4 on the left side of the unit (in between the XLR connectors). The only trick is you have to enable plug-in power, which isn't very intuitive. On the other inputs the phantom power setting is a dedicated switch on the front panel. On input 3/4 you have to enable it deep in the menus and the enable function is NOT in the "input" or "record" menus as you'd expect. Here's how you do it:Press the "MENU" button, scroll all the way down to "OTHERS", then "SYSTEM", then "PLUGIN POWER", then select "ON".The quality/etc. is pretty much exactly what everyone else has already said. Really nice sound for the money. I find it's a little boomy on the low end but the DR60 has a low-cut filter which helps take care of that problem. The cords are a very nice, long length and more stout than the normal earbud cords. Only thing I wish they'd provided is a clothing clip to eliminate cord noise while recording.I've attached an out-of-the-box photo showing what you get: Headphones, a pair of windscreens, a set of earbud tips, a nice felt pouch.All in all a good purchase. I'd buy again.

I am very please with the recording capability of these affordable mic/headphones. There is a noticeable difference in spatial sound versus recording with a shotgun mic. To get cleaner sound I glued small third-party dead cats to the microphones and I try to remain stationary when recording (bumping the wires can cause unwanted noise).

Great microphones that have a really smart design to monitor and record the sounds you are hearing as they are happening. I have owned somewhere between three or four of these microphones already. The previous ones I owned broke, so it might be wise to take extra good care of these mics as they aren't really that cheap. Probably not recommended to do what I have done, but I usually clutter these in my pocket because I also use them as playback on my mp3 device (and that might explain why some broke on me). None the less, recording a concert is possible through these, but I strongly advise you to check your settings and do some trial and error stuff before you settle on what works best for you. I recommend not being too far away from your sound source. One thing I have found with these mics is that recording through a low cut filter may help you have the vocals come across cleaner, but it may also take away some of the bass detail you might also wish to capture.