Olympus ME-51S Stereo Microphone

This Olympus ME-51S Stereo Microphone was purchased for use with an Olympus DS-30 Digital Voice Recorder to record my college lectures to be offered on my Website and via podcasting services, including Apple iTunes, Yahoo! and PodBlaster. I wanted high quality audio recording equipment to give a professional sound to my presentations, and the DS-30 had already been doing well with its own, built-in stereo mic. Unfortunately, some of the rooms in which I lecture have the acoustical qualities of a haunted house, complete with unfortunately troubled, noisy souls dedicated to howling incessantly.Hence, I bought the microphone to clip onto my tie so I could attach the recorder to my belt with a belt-clip case available from Olympus. The DS-30 has three recording modes: "lecture hall," "conference," and "dictation." (The DS-30 also has four recording quality levels, including "XQ" stereo, which I always use.) With the microphone, I was able to take the gain down from "lecture hall" to "conference," which cut the ambient noise level considerably. I was somewhat worried that the microphone being so close to my tie would cause occasional rubbing sounds as the mic hit the fabric, but in more than 50 hours of recording so far with the mic I have noticed that only twice while preparing the lectures for broadcast.The microphone comes with three feet of lead wire, so there is plenty of cord to loosely wrap the wire to the back of a tie, drop it down a shirt, and then bring it back out at the bottom to take over to where the recorder is attached to the belt (if you want to do it by such a complicated method to avoid having wire flapping about).I was also concerned that the microphone would not have the same audio quality as the built-in mic, but that has not been the case: the quality of sound being recorded with the ME-515 is exactly the same as that from the original, built-in mic, which detaches with a simple pull, allowing the jack from the ME-515 to be inserted with ease. I should caution that, even though the jack goes in easily, make sure it has gone in all the way. Once, I apparently didn't push hard enough, and the jack went in only partially, so I ended up with a really weird audio recording that ran mono instead of stereo, with the mono switching randomly from left to right.In summary, the Olympus ME-515 is a wonderful complement to any of the better Olympus stereo digital audio recorders with which it is compatible, including the WM and DS series. The microphone is unobtrusively small, lightweight, smoothly attractive in shape, durable, and ready for use right out of the package. I have used it now in well over 50 hours of recording, and I carry it in a simple little pouch alongside my Olympus DS-30. If you want a stereo microphone for your better Olympus recorder, this is the one. You will not be disappointed with the audio quality you get from it.

I originally bought this several months ago for my GoPro Hero 3+ Silver. Everything I read and the videos I saw said that they would work together, and believe me, I watched hundreds of videos on YouTube of every mic that I could find. They all sounded very good. Unfortunately, my experience was different. I purchased the mic and the adapter cord to plug into the GoPro (the adapter cord I bought directly from GoPro). I could not get ANY sound from it. As soon as I plugged it in, the sound disappeared. I thought it might be a bad mic, so I contacted Amazon and they replaced it immediately. Still nothing. I thought it might be the cord, so I bought another from GoPro. Still nothing. I made sure my camera had all the updates, still nothing. Finally I tried the mic through another adapter, into a PA system I have. It worked then. For some reason, this mic would NOT work with my GoPro Hero 3+ Silver.But today I received my new GoPro Hero 4 Black. After charging it, the first thing I tried was this mic, and VIOLA, it worked perfectly!! Go figure. I think there may be an issue with my GoPro Hero 3+ Silver, something that doesn't allow it to recognize when the mic is plugged in. So, despite it not working in my Hero 3+ Silver (I'm convinced it's an issue with my particular Hero3+), I am giving this mic a great review. For the price it costs, the sound is a HUGE improvement over the internal mic. I used the mic to record my car while driving (with a couple of wind screens I already had ready for it), and recorded some guitar playing. I am very happy with the sound now. Great purchase!

I bought the Olympus ME-51S microphone to use with a GoPro HD2.The HD2's mic input is on the side of the casing, so when you attach the Olympus you get a front/rear image, rather than a left/right image. This is not a deal-breaker, as the proximity and polar pattern of the capsules to each other doesn't give you a particularly wide image.The noise floor of this microphone is frankly apalling...but I may be slightly biased as I am a sound engineer by trade and I'm used to working with the good stuff. Certainly if you are looking for pristine recordings of quiet atmospheres, you'll be wanting to look for something else as this microphone is not up to that task. If you are looking to get some semblance of actuality in a normal real-world environment, then this is probably adequate.Compared to the in-built microphone on the GoPro, it's a vast improvement...but really that isn't saying much given just how terrible the GoPro's mic actually is.This is not a mic to use if you want to record critical dialogue further than about 2 feet away. That's not a criticism, it's just not what the mic was designed to do.On the upside, it's compact.And it costs about three fifths of bugger-all.For non-critical sound aquisition, what more do you want?