Buy the Rode Wireless GO Mic System on Amazon
Buy the LensGO LWM-318C Wireless Lav Mic System on Amazon
Please note that some of the links in my video descriptions are affiliate links where I earn from qualifying purchases. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
– Intro
hey it’s adrian from dump currently stack and today i’m comparing the rode wireless go system to the lens go lwm318c wireless system as well so in terms of price um these are very different this is around 100 canadian or um adus and this one is around 300 canadian which works out to like 230 240 us so there’s a big difference in price like you know um three times as much so let’s just do a comparison of the sound um the range and let’s see which is worth it let’s get started
Rode System
okay so i’ve done like separate reviews for each of these products but for those who haven’t seen it let’s just go through really quickly what comes in the box so starting with the lens system you have the wireless transmitter and receiver with magnetic clips you also have a wind muff you have as included on wired lav mic if you want to use that with the wind muff as well and a lapel clip you also have a trrs cable and a trs cable you also have two charging cables a micro usb you also have a lanyard if you just want to have it hanging off your neck you have these two keys or pins to reset it and you also have an additional magnetic mount with backing tape if you have like a more permanent setup for the road system you have the two units as well you also have two charging cables and these are type c charging cables you also have a trs cable a carrying pouch and the wind muffs also forgot to mention on the um the lens go you do have a carrying case as well okay let’s talk about the main differences between both uh systems so let’s start with the road system so on the road system you can easily tell which is the transmitter um which is the receiver this is the receiver because it has the screen transmitter here now if you power them on so you can see on the screen you get a bunch of helpful information you can see the battery life of the the transmitter and the receiver you also have real-time audio monitoring so you can see if anything’s clipping there’s also a db um level indicator so you can see if i click that you can change the db level and you also have a signal strength indicator to tell you how much signal you have and on both of these um the clip is built in okay and charging-wise you have the usb type-c which is great that’s type of cables most people have now and you have the audio monitoring um if you want to do that by headphones you also have a port here for a wired life sorry lav mic if you want to run that and then you have the built-in microphone you also have two leds here to show you that um it’s powered on and the uh that it’s synced okay now the lens goes system so at a
LensGo System
glance you really can’t tell which is which um if you look at the back of these so if i remove the magnets you can see um one says transmitter and one says receiver so that’s how you can tell them apart so you are gonna have to pay extra attention to that now one neat thing about this system versus the road is um it’s a magnetic clip-on system so you can see here well actually once it’s on there you could just rotate that and then you can see if it’s um the receiver transmitter anyway yeah you can see right there now with this um the magnet is really good on this so because it’s relying on just the magnet to keep it secure they’re a good magnet so you can see if i drop it from here you know it found its way home if i kind of do it at a diagonal find its way home again so it does take a bit of effort to get this off so that’s great on the back of the transmitter you have the built-in mic like on the road you also have a input if you want to run a lav mic and you have one led light which shows you that it’s paired and i believe it flashes or changes color to let you know if the battery life is low there’s also like a reset um area here and you do have charging but it is um micro usb so kind of like the old old style and on the receiver you have a 3.5 track if you want to do headphone audio monitoring and you also have an led light so once you turn both on once this blue one stays cyan and that means they repair now big
Differences
big thing between this and the road system is you have a wealth more of information on this system you can see the battery life for both you can see the audio monitoring you can see signal strength and you actually have um the ability to adjust the db on this there’s nothing it’s just you turn it on it’s paired so this is like a set it and forget it system um so you know it’s it’s dependent on you what you prefer i mean while this is handy that it has the um monitoring on here you know most likely you’re not gonna see that because you’re not actually gonna it’s gonna be mounted to your cold shoes you’re not really gonna see that unless you have it like dangling down on the side so that’s a major difference now going into like the practicality of using it so this is the um transmitter for the road and this is 31 grams and the transmitter on the lens ago is 38 grams so it’s only a gram difference it doesn’t really matter however if i clip this on you can see it has a tendency to sag down one way to get around that is to clip it inwards like that and tuck it in now let me adjust that better so you can see it’s not going to sag as much now if i was to move too much you know it does have that tendency to sag so you know that is something you have to deal with one way to get around that is to use a lanyard just run a lanyard under this clip and have it hanging here now with the lens hose system it’s going to have that same tendency to suck so you can see if i clip it here again it’s it’s also sagging right so you have two ways uh to fix that unlike the road system so i could clip it inwards like this um you know less likely to sag you know unless i move you look actually that’s popping up pretty easily but the one neat thing with this is you know i can just separate the mic here and what i’ll do is i’ll run this behind my shirt sorry behind my sweater and then i’ll just use the magnet here and clip it here so now it’s less it’s less sagging it’s not clipped anywhere on here and you know you’re still going to hear the audio and if i shake this dangle it around like it’s it’s not going anywhere right let me just set that back so this i feel is a better system in terms of mounting it’s more versatile because the magnets are really really strong on here you could see you know i really shook it around and it didn’t go anywhere and you know i could just bring this higher up if i want like up in the corner here and you know i just feel that’s a much better system as well on the lensvo system they do give you a lanyard if you want to clip it so it’s not something you’re buying you also get a supplied lav mic wireless mic story which is something that doesn’t come in the road system so value-wise you get way more with the lens go system than you do with the rode wireless system now that may not be as important to you you know your determining factor may be the audio quality so let’s get into that now
LensGo Audio
so here’s the audio test with the lens go system so to keep it fair i’m just going to have this mounted like straight in the middle for both units so you know the distance between um you know my mouth and the the units are going to be accurate so this is what that sounds like um this is rated for four hours of battery life and like i mentioned there’s no volume settings or anything adjust to adjust so the camera i have it paired with is the sony a7 iii and the input level on the camera is on 12 right now so here’s what it sounds like now let’s listen to what the road unit sounds like
Rode Wireless GO Audio
okay so here’s the audio from the rode wireless mic system i have it in the same place so like i mentioned on this unit you have um three uh gain adjustment settings so i’ve left it on zero thinking that’s going to be kind of like a fair ground so this is what that audio sounds like now on this unit the battery i believe is a bit bigger because this is rated for up to seven hours of battery life whereas on the lens go it’s four to four and a half hours in terms of the range on both units um this is rated for 70 meters which is around 230 feet and on the lens it was rated for 50 meters which is around 164 feet so let’s do a test of the audio range for both units now okay quick range test with the lens go
Lensgo Range Test
system so this is rated for 50 meters or 164 feet providing you have a clear line of sight so most likely you’re gonna hear the signal cut in and cut out when my body’s turned away walking walking clear line of sight walking clear line of sight [Music] clear line aside [Music] clear line aside and [Music] clear line of sight on this type okay range test with the
Rode Range Test
rode wireless loft system so again you may hear clicking when i turn my back away because it needs a clear line of sight and i believe this is rated for 230 feet walking walking walking walking walking clear line of sight [Music] clear line of sight clear line of sight clear line of sight [Music] clear line of sight [Music] clear line of sight [Music] clear line of sight [Music] clear line of sight so from those audio range tests we can see like the most reliable system is the road system while i maintain line of sight on the lens go system the audio was there for around the 40 to 50 meter mark so it is accurate there however every time you have your body turned away from the receiver um where your body’s blocking the signal the signal just cuts in and out right so um unless you’re walking backwards you know you’re gonna have those audio drops on the road system even while i had my back turned away from the unit the audio only ever cut out around the um i would say like 60 meter mark but every time i turned back around and i had clear line of sight it came right back so um on the road system like i was able to have my back towards the unit i would say for like 40 to 50 meters and it was still transmitting audio it’s only when i got around the 60 meter mark that’s when the audio cut out and came back when i turned around so i would say for both systems if you need that guaranteed reliability while you’re walking long distances definitely it has to be the road system now if you’re just doing like these kind of like indoor videos like i’m doing then you can go with either system because i had no issues with the lens go um you know while i was just like you know say like two feet away from the camera so after doing the audio tests and the
My Thoughts
range test um just my like final thoughts on the units i think that if you’re mostly going to be in an indoor environment or you’re not you know you’re not going to be walking more than say like 10 20 feet away from the camera then you can definitely go with the lens go system um for the price which is a third of what the road wireless system is um it’s a great value for what you get like the included live mic um i like i really like the versatility of this magnetic clip-on system so you know if your budget is around 100 sometimes it goes on sale a little bit less then this is definitely the unit for you um it pairs right out of the box same as the road system there’s no extra setup like that you do have um 20 channels that you could cycle through if you do have interference so this is great in that aspect you know great value um and it’s a set it and forget a type of system downfalls of this are you know you just have the led so you can’t tell battery life um there’s no you know sound adjustments um things like that or a signal indicator strength now on the road unit you know you’re getting you’re paying pretty much for reliability because with this the range is uh much more so it’s an extra 20 meters more than the lens system it also did not cut out the audio when i had my back turned away until i was at that like say 50 meter mark 50 60 meter mark so you are going to be able to walk much further away uh with this unit as well the battery life on this is going to be uh two hours longer than on the lens go unit so that’s something else to consider build quality wise they’re both great but um one really unique feature of this one that i don’t believe the lens go has is that this has 128 bit encryption so if you’re worried about your you know audio data being intercepted you know you can be pretty confident that it’s going to be fine with the 128 bit encryption on this unit okay so after doing a comparison on the audio test and the range test the sound is definitely better on the road system now the lensicle system is not horrible and when i did that review separately it sounded good to me but then when i compare the audio back to back on the lensbo system the audio sounds like a little bit more muddy so it’s not as clear as on the road system so i would say you know if you’re trying to decide between both of these units and you just want like the absolute best sound and you want the most range then it’s a no-brainer the rode wireless cool system is the better buy now if you’re starting out on a budget and you’re kind of doing these indoor videos range isn’t that important to you the sound quality that you get out of the lens go it’s still decent like it’s going to be better than whatever you’re getting out of your inbuilt camera microphone or inbuilt cell phone microphone so it’s still a good unit there but again if you want the best audio quality it’s going to be the road system the other things that the road system has going for it is that lcd or sorry led screen status screen you also have the better range and longer battery life now if you’re okay with that you know paint three times more great buy like can highly recommend if you’re more on a budget then you know definitely check out the lens cool system just be prepared to maybe do a little bit more um editing in the audio when you’re doing post processing but for the purposes of this video uh all of the sorry all of the audio is unedited so you have a good idea what it’s gonna sound like straight up all right so i hope that was helpful in helping you decide um if there’s anything i missed or if there’s any other tests you want me to do let me know and you know leave a comment down below let me know what you guys think about the audio from the lens go and the road if you think you know it’s worth it paying three times as much for the road system or if you’d get by with the lens scope system like i said the audio is decent out of the lens so you just may have to do a little bit of editing but overall like they’re both great systems and it’s a much better value with the lens scope because you get the included lav mic and if you like that type of magnetic system it’s fully worth it so leave a comment down below let me know what you think i’ll see in my next video thanks bye you
Buy the Rode Wireless GO Mic System on Amazon
Buy the LensGO LWM-318C Wireless Lav Mic System on Amazon
Please note that some of the links in my video descriptions are affiliate links where I earn from qualifying purchases. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
