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– Intro
hey guys welcome to my channel dem crum release tech today i want to review two microphones the cinco m3 on camera microphone this is a cardioid microphone and the takstar sgc698 microphone also another on-camera microphone however this microphone is like a unidirectional microphone that excels at picking up sound from one direction only and this is a stereo microphone so it can pick up sound from left and right so i just want to go over the differences between both of them you know the pros and cons and then you can decide which works best for what you’re looking for
– Takstar Features
okay so looking at the build quality of the tax star sgc698 you can see if i put it close there it says it’s a stereo stereo microphone build quality wise it’s all metal like it’s all aluminum up here this part here is plastic um this rotator wheel to tighten into the cold shoe this is plastic also the back of it it takes a cr2032 or 25 battery and there’s no battery indicator light on this um when you turn it on it flashes red once you can see that let me turn it off back on see it flash is red now that’s to let you know that it’s on however there’s no light that stays on the entire time so you know you gotta remember that it was on or just look at the switch at the top to know that it’s on if the battery dies there’s not really a way to know i don’t know if this flashes i haven’t run into that yet but it’s just something you gotta keep in mind that because it’s using this one small battery you know be mindful carry extras just in case in terms of the settings you can see you could just turn it on off and you have the high pass filter in terms of the db settings you have a negative 10 if you’re in a loud environment you have zero and plus 20 if you’re going to be sitting or standing further away from the camera now this it only comes with one cable so it’s a trs cable that goes directly from the microphone to your camera and it’s built is built in here um it’s not removable in any way so if you damage this cable it pulls too tightly you know that’s pretty much the end of this microphone so keep that in mind um other than that you know if you’re planning on using it for a cell phone you do need the trrs cable for a cell phone or if you’re going to be plugging it into a laptop you need that same trrs cable there may be an adapter you can buy to switch us from a trs to trrs it’s not something i’ve needed to do so i haven’t looked into it and lastly it does come with a dead cat if you’re gonna be out in um windy environments okay so now looking
– Synco Features
at the senco m3 microphone this is a much much lighter microphone i would say it’s about um half the weight of the attack star 698 i believe this is around 50 50 to 60 grams so that’s that’s double so you know this is ideal if you’re going to be putting it on a cell phone because it’s so light now it is all plastic you can see here you can depress that pretty easily um this windscreen or you know foam it’s built in it’s not removable in terms of the settings you have on off um and the high pass filter you have a negative 10 0 and plus 10 whereas the tacks are had a plus 20 so if you’re going to be further away you know the taxer may be better in that those type of situations now at the back of this it has two ports so you have a microphone in and the headphone port if you want to monitor the audio now monitoring the audio is not something that the attack star comes with so if you you know you need to do that or if you need someone to do that for you this is going to be the better microphone now you can see there’s no inbuilt cable so you do have a single does send you the trs cable so you can plug that in if this cable goes you know just buy another one the microphone’s still good and you do have the trrs cable um for your cell phone sorry i got these two mixed up this is the trs for the camera trrs for the cell phone so that’s another benefit of this microphone is that you know you can just swap cables or buy new cables if necessary the shock mount on here it’s um hard plastic i don’t think it’s going to absorb you know vibrations that much if you’re running around and this is removable too and the difference between the batteries on here and the batteries on the um attack stars this takes two aaa batteries so you know you’re probably this is rated for about 50 hours of run time if you’re not monitoring the audio if you’re monitoring the audio then it’s only about 10 hours now when you turn this on you can see you have the constant led light to let you know that it’s on so this is another feature i think that’s um better on this microphone than on the attack star so the taxer i’d be a bit hesitant to use that for you know any type of really important recording because i’m just never sure when it’s gonna go up so right now all the audio that i’m recording it’s on the rode um wireless mic system so i’m gonna do now is i’m just gonna play audio from uh one of my old youtube videos and since i can just keep the playback volume at the same i’m gonna leave the phone in the same direct um same position and i’m gonna switch both the tax star and the cinco mic and i’m gonna play with the games now because the tax star has a plus 20 and the single only has a plus 10 what i’ll do is i’ll do tests with the negative 10 on both zero on both and then for the tax star the plus 28 the cinco the plus 10.
so the tax is going to have a bit of an unfair advantage in in the plus category but i just still want to give you an idea so you know if it’s worth it the plus 20 or if the plus 10 is adequate for you okay so let’s get started with those tests okay so right now i have the tax star
Takstar Audio at -10 dB
mounted on top of the camera and the setting is um with the negative 10 db so i’m just going to play the clip i’m going to leave the cell phone in the exact same area for all of these tests so let’s just play 10 seconds today i’m going to be reviewing the philips sonicare diamond clean smart electric toothbrush this electric toothbrush retails for 200 to 230 canadian or us dollars depending on any current promotions okay so that was negative 10. now we’re going to try it with just the zero setting okay so here’s the single m3 and it’s at the negative 10 db setting today i’m going to be reviewing the philips sonicare diamondclean smart electric toothbrush this electric toothbrush retails for 200 to 230 canadian or us dollars depending on any current promotion here’s the test with the taxar
Takstar Audio at 0 dB
sgc698 with the zero db setting today i’m going to be reviewing the philips sonicare diamondclean smart electric toothbrush this electric toothbrush retails for around 200 to 230 canadian or us dollars depending on any current promotions okay so that was attack star on the zero db setting here’s the cinco m3 with the zero db setting today i’m going to be reviewing the philips sonicare diamond clean smart electric toothbrush this electric toothbrush retails for 200 to 230 canadian or us dollars depending on any current promotions
Takstar Audio at +20 dB
okay now this is with the tax star set to plus 20. today i’m going to be reviewing the philips sonicare diamond clean smart electric compressor this electric toothbrush retails for 200 to 230 canadian or us dollars depending on any current promotions okay so that was definitely louder i could see when i was monitoring the audio so now we’re gonna do those same three tests again with the cinco m3 mic and here’s the synchro m3 with the plus
Synco Audio at +10 dB
10 db setting enabled today i’m going to be reviewing the philips sonic air diamond clean smart electric toothbrush this electric toothbrush retails for 200 to 230 canadian or us dollars depending on any current promotions
My Thoughts
all right guys so after testing both of these microphones um if i was to make a recommendation you know i wish it could be clear cut but there’s some pros and cons to both of these i would say for the attack star the plus 20 is definitely a great feature to have that the synco m3 doesn’t if you’re going to be standing far away or sitting far away from the camera that’s definitely going to come in handy the other thing is if you find that your camera records audio pretty low or it’s pretty weak at that then that can definitely help as well now it just it does have just this built-in cable the trs if you’re going to use this for a cell phone you have to buy a trs to trrs cable adapter so that’s an additional cost um that you wouldn’t have to worry about if you had the cinco m3 the other thing is like i mentioned it only takes the cr2025 or 2032 battery so obviously you know the battery life on this is going to be much less than you would expect on the cinco m3 i i’m not sure how much this is rated for but the synco m3 is rated for uh 50 hours if you’re not going to be doing any audio monitoring with the mic um sort of headphone jack input with this the other downfall is the led light doesn’t stay on just when you turn it on like i showed before it flashes red and then it’s on but it doesn’t stay on to let you know that it’s actually recording now this is also a bit heavier if you care about you know a light setup then the the sink was definitely going to be better than than this one it also comes with the dead cat so if you’re going to be in windy um conditions that’s helpful with the sync 13 like this this is just much lighter now it does extend a far bit out more so if you’re going to be using it for like cell phone vlogging think about that if you don’t want it extending that far out then you’d go with the taxer and then just get that adapter the benefit of this though is you can monitor your audio while you’re recording and it does come with both cables if a cable breaks just swap the cable the microphone is still good can’t say the same about the attack star the other thing like i mentioned it comes with the two aaa batteries so these are much easier to find and have on hand than you know a cr2025 or 2032 battery so i think if i was gonna pick between both of these i would probably take the sinkhole m3 even though it is all plastic um it’s lighter i’ll i’d feel safer with the battery life because it’s two aaa batteries i’m happy that i could just swap out cables if i need to if a cable breaks and you do have the odd added benefit of being able to monitor the audio so it’s a pretty close call but i would pick the um the single m3 for situations like this where you know my camera is pretty static and i’m not moving around too much but for maybe kind of run and gun or if you’re vlogging this may be better if you get the the um the trs the trs adapter just because it’s a shorter shorter profile you know it’s not going to stick out as much from your cell phone the only thing is it’s going to be much heavier and i definitely walk with some batteries on him for this so let me know what you guys think in the comments below about the sound test if i got anything wrong or if there’s anything i missed and let me know which you think sounded better alright thanks and stay tuned for my next video if this was helpful at all please consider liking and subscribing i have more videos like this to come
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.
