I bought some microphone capsules to improve the quality of the recordings from my Olympus handheld recorder.
After reading forums about recording ambient sounds, I found interesting that the capsule EM272 from the brand Primo was overall the most rated capsule to record ambient sounds because of it's sensitivity, so I picked 2 of them to give it a try. (they are a bit expensive)
With only one model, I couldn't give a good test to compare, so I bought another capsule from other brand with a bit less sensitivity but that should do a good job based on it's specs. This one cost less than 2€.
And the last capsule I've got, are 2 really tiny. This is the cheapest capsule from the 3 presented in this test.
The test was done with the same song, same volume and mics placed in the same position (behind the door). The results are a bit surprising, as the tiny ones behave really well to record voice and most of the frecuencies, but it gets a bit congested when some bass comes in or other hard sounds are recorded.
The medium model behave a bit flat compared with the others. The spectrum on audacity is closer to the default mic from the Olympus. Quality-wise I would say is a bit cleaner than the Olympus, and of course a bit more volume. For 2€ is really a nive upgrade for your handheld or usb set ups. I can share the brand if needed.
And the last one, the Primo EM272. This is the real deal. Clean recording, no congestion at all in any frecuency and on top of that picks up some noises that I couldn't hear while I was recording, which is kind of funny.
Note: if your handheld recorder is mono, any mic you plug in while be recorded in mono as well. It would be nice if manufacturers allowed to record stereo through the minijack mic.
Here are 2 pics where you can see the results.
