BeachTekDXA-MICRO PRO Camera Adaptor 2x Passive XLR

I’ve been messing around buying audio solutions to try and get rid off hiss in my videos, this does the job.I first bought a ntg2 and a Tascam dr100 as I thought they would be a good match.Well, the quality of the ntg2 is terrible as it needs ALOT of gain and I wish I’d never bought that mic.The Tascam works well and does what it’s supposed to.Even plugging any mic into the h4n pro produced a little hiss but enough to bug me.So, I bought a new mic, the audio technica at897, much better mic but still hiss.Now, moving on to the review of the beachtek…Almost straight out of the box the unit works great and VASTLY improved the audio, boosting the gain with little hiss.Though, being extra fussy I thought I’d plug my cloud lifter in to try and boost the signal.WELL, what do you know….No more hiss, just clean and clear audio straight into the camera.I also tried my tritan fethead, worked as well as the cloud lifter.The unit (beachtek) has no screen and no menus, just a straight forward sliding of switches.You have 48v of phantom power to give to any mic and the gain is considerable.I was only interested in connecting an XOR mic to the unit so that’s all I’ve used.If your camera lacks a headphone port there is a connection to monitor the output.You connect your xlr mic, connect the output to the mic input of your camera and off you go….almost!The trick is to turn the mic input setting on your right down then turn up the gain on the beachtek.There are two settings, the at897 mic I have took the low setting vs the high.On the high settings it sounded a little distorted.Another caveat is if you have a mic that has a battery compartment and you want to use a cloud lifter or fethead, it only works “with” a battery, otherwise it works fine without.You can also slide a switch which gives you sound to both the left and right vs on one side. To do this you have to turn the gain dials up to the same level. -12db is recommended.Talking of the gain knobs, you can also record a safety track by lowering either the left or right so it doesn’t clip, whichever side you are happy with you can then copy and paste to the other side.The unit comes with a mounting thread and a screw so that you can have it mounted on your tripod either on top or below.I prefer it below and it’s just a tiny bit bigger than my gh5.I think it’s a fantastic product and it is worth the money!!!

If you are making videos on your dslr, this is the equipment you need to ensure you can connect sound in af much better way than just using only the mic input on your camera. With this piece of equipment you can connect several sound sources - even supply phantom power - and with the gain low in the camera ensure a good sound on your video. Its a no nonsense well built piece of equipment.