VidPro XM-55 13-Piece Professional Video & Broadcast Unidirectional Condenser Shotgun Microphone Kit - Complete Set Includes 2 Mounts Adapters Cables and More Perfect for Indoor and Outdoor Recording

I can tell you a few things from my experience with audio, and this product is no different than working with any grade mic. You always have to add equipment to get the desired result. I read the reviews and some were just plain stupid attempts to blame this product on their mishandling of it. So, I'll start with the one's who say that they pulled the wires out from the back of the unit. I inspected the area, and I found two features that you should know about, and by the way they by no means add up to a problem with this mic. Firstly there is a plastic inner tube cutaway that clips the XLR male into the plastic female receptor, you will immediately see this when you unscrew the aluminum casing from the mic to insert the battery. At this point you can tell how much pressure you should put on that part of the mic (if you're paying attention) and so you can gauge the amount of push and pull from there. I plugged and unplugged the XLR a dozen times, and everything held up nicely. I didn't YANK or shove it. When you do that with any mic, you're going to get problems. So why other reviewers pulled the wires out is simply because they pulled the wires out. The metal used in the XLR cables are of not the highest grade and that's why you're getting off cheap with the kit, but don't let that sway you the conductivity is fine. One thing you will not get with the kit is the XLR male to male cable, for plugging the other end of the XLR to another unit, you have to go to the 3.5 to plug it in, or use another XLR adapter to return to male XLR for plug ins. The 3.5 adapter will bring you down in impedance, and this is why other reviewers say to stay away. This is not, and I repeat not a reflection of the mic. If your going to 3.5 you most certainly should know about impedance changes, there's nothing lacking in the 3.5, you have to increase the impedance, through perhaps a Tube MP, or an inline XLR impedance transformer, which even the high end mics need, You don't have to replace the 3.5 with a $60 cord, and even if you did, the impedance is not going to change. So be prepared for the mic to receive an impedance change. XLR to XLR will bring you to a higher output but that still depends on the equipment the mic is going into. I'm using a Tube MP and the mic exceeded my expectations. Plus the power indicator on the mic is in the right place, and the switch is large enough to operate easily. The rest of the attachments this kit comes (dead cat), short male to female XLR, mic stand adapter, camera mount adapter, wind foam, battery, 3.5 to 1/4 inch adapter, vibration free cradle, and carry case, (which is of good quality). There is a peel off label that you might be afraid of on the case, no worries, just take it off. You can see a demo on You Tube, but keep in mind it being done with a direct camcorder. As I said, if your expecting to get good sound from any mic, be prepared to change the impedance if needed. From my experience and in my humble opinion, this product exceeds the quality I expected, and therefore I would not hesitate to purchase this kit.

Excellent Quality. All Accesories, Professional experience

For around $100, the value provided by this kit is pretty amazing. I paired this mic with a Tascam DR-40 digital recorder, which gives me a really versatile setup. Since this is a shotgun mic, keep in mind that it is very directional and mono. I use an inexpensive Hosa XLR splitter to record the same audio to both the left and right channels on my recorder, which saves me a step in post-production. The kit includes a short XLR cable, short XLR-to-1/8" cable, a long (26 foot, I believe) XLR cable, and a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter. That means that no matter what audio input you have, you should be able to use this mic right out of the box. The shock mount is awfully nice to have for on-camera mounting (a shock mount can easily run $30 or so on its own) and the two windscreens (foam and "dead cat"-style) mean that you should be able to shoot both inside and outdoors. The foam handle, which I thought would be useless, is actually pretty nice; the bottom has a 3/8" tripod mount with a 1/4" adapter, so it could be used for a variety of purposes. The case is nice and sturdy, although everything is packed in there pretty tightly - you probably don't want to store the long XLR cable in there permanently. The microphone itself captures nice clean mono audio without too much hiss. I wouldn't put it up against a $500 microphone, but I think it stacks up very nicely against mics in the $200 range. The really nice thing about this kit is its adaptability. I shoot video on a DSLR and this kit lets me run audio to either the camera, a digital recorder, or a mixer; mount to either the camera hotshoe, a mic stand, or a boom pole; and capture sound indoors or out - all without any additional purchases. The construction quality is not top-of-the-line - the cables especially are a little thin and slightly cheap feeling - but everything is functional and seems fairly sturdy. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to get a comprehensive adaptable audio setup for video work, I'd highly recommend this kit.

...microphone costing three times as much. Very clean sound, the shock mount works, the short cables were good (one does produce some noise if wiggled -can't see how to take it apart to check the contacts) the long cable is wound too tight for my liking so that now lives outside of the case (connectors were a tad too tight as well), nice case BTW, the "dead cat" does just what a dead cat is supposed to do even reducing some of the HVAC noise we encountered, unfortunately the HVAC was just overpowering everything. All in all the kit is very good not quite perfect but for the price I'm not complaining. I'd recommend this along with getting a couple more xlr to xlr cables (ones you can take apart to fix and bad contacts). So I've had the Vidpro XM-55 kit for several months by now and used it on over two hundred interview shoots. The only things to go wrong are: one of the rubber bands for the shock mount broke (it was pulled too tight by an over zealous assistant) which was replaced by one of the spares that come with the kit, and the on/off switch can be a tad tricky in that it does not always make a good connection, small strip of gaffer's tape fixes that. I have definitely had my money's worth out of this kit, and it is still paying for itself. The typical set up is the Vidpro XM kit with a wired Sony Lavaliere feeding into a Canon XF100. I do not recommend using the phantom power from the camera however as this generates noise but the AA battery lasts a good long while - I tend to change it after a couple of hours just out of safety - one time I had run out of extra batteries and the one in the mic finished the last four hours with narry a problem.

Great shotgun mic with all the accessories for the money! Performance wise, seems to do the job OK for an audience of 40 to 100 people when pointed at the person doing the talking. Don't expect same audio quality of a lavier mic pinned on a person. I use the shotgun mic for the audience quesitons or comments and a lavalier mic on the speaker on my camcorder. The wide switch position picks up too much noise in large audiences, but the tele position works nicely to narrow the person speaking in the audience. You can use as a separate mic to for interviews.

Product arrived without any shrink wrap or exterior seal. It had clearly been used before. Missing contents included one of the windscreens and the users manual. The microphone itself had great audio quality just as long as you don't move it. The microphone has an intermittent open connection causing the audio to cut out once any motion is applied. Kind of makes it worthless as a studio boom microphone.

Purchased two of these mic's for audio for a video project my daughter is working on. The mic works pretty well, good sensitivity and picks up very well and love all the accessories and case to help keep everything organized. The problem is the build quality of the mic is very poor. One of the mic's broke the second time it was used. When my daughter pulled the cable out, the entire connector came out, ripping the wires apart in the process. Amazon was fantastic about handling the replacement, even though it was past the store's 10 day return policy. So we have a replacement, but will need to handle the cable with lots of care to avoid this from happening again.

The Vidpro XM-55 boom mic set is a very good inexpensive alternative if you are on a budget, like me. I recently used it shooting a 3 minute short film for school, hooked it to a Canon 5D Mark II, worked great crystal clear sound, it picks up so good you really have to watch where you aim that thing. I also used it hooked to a ZOOM H1 to record sound effects, once again works great. It picked up the sound of a lit cigarette dropped in a puddle of water. Also convenient all the extra hook up, and mounting options. This is really a good buy if you are looking to spend less that 100 bucks on sound, I believe I paid $89.99 bought through TheImaging World on Amazon.

I bought this mic after reading positive and negative reviews about it. It works as expected and the kit comes with lots of different pieces so it can be used for a variety of setups. I also got a Tube MP to use with it as another reviewer suggested. I found that the pairing also improved the quality of the sound recording. Thank you.

Usamos el equipo para nuestro proyecto de audio y videos y todo execlente

Il est Vraiment bon pour le Prix ... mais il est très sensible aux bruit de handling

Dont buy it if you need good quality audio. I thought the only problem I would get was gonna be a bit of noise but apart from getting the surrounding noise it gives a weird poor audio quality. No room to work on it in post... Definitely wish I could return it.

Sounds pretty good, a bit noisy but I can live with it; never going to replace a $700 mic but why would you expect it to?