An UNDERWATER Microphone for GoPro?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,286 words · ~6 min read
0:00
when I heard that senheiser was building an underwater microphone for the GoPro
0:06
Hero 4 I nearly lost my shirt are you
0:11
freaking serious you mean all the
0:14
recordings of me screaming like a whiny
0:17
hairless infant can continue after I hit
0:22
the water what does highquality
0:25
submarine audio even sound like dreams
0:29
of dialogues with dolphins danced in my
0:33
Dome L bro you can't bring your computer
0:36
into the water we finally got one but at
0:40
$200 does it offer enough Under the Sea
0:43
Adventure to wet your appetite let's
0:47
dive
0:58
in hp's New Omen X lineup comes equipped
1:01
with Intel's 7th generation core i7 processor check it out at the link in
1:06
the video description excited about owning a piece
1:10
of History I ripped open this technological breakthroughs box
1:14
liberating the high quality foam that encapsulated the device and I'd be lying
1:20
if I said my uh audio file parts weren't
1:23
tingling a little bit the most obvious
1:26
physical characteristic of the MK2 elements is the a dead cat style
1:31
windscreen so clearly then this thing
1:34
isn't just made for underwater use and
1:38
if you're just dying to touch it at this point you're not the only one it ended
1:43
up though being a little less fuzzy and a little more prickly than I expected
1:49
turns out that's because much like me
1:54
it's meant to be rugged resistant to dust mud and snow when you used above
2:01
the water's surface the microphone mounts to a shell that will soon become
2:06
the back half of your gopro's waterproof housing snap it on to the hinge of the
2:11
stock front piece then this little cable
2:14
managed wire and this tiny PCB are
2:18
responsible for connecting the mic to your hero 4's mini USB port they can
2:23
safely be removed later by the way using this tab you then tuck the whole thing
2:28
discreetly into the back plate and bring the two halves of the housing together
2:32
to form a holy Union of hermetically sealed happiness I have to say I was a
2:38
little surprised to see an exposed PCB
2:41
but if you look really closely you can actually see that the housing is ever so
2:47
slightly thinner where it rests which should give you then some idea of how
2:52
tight the space constraints were for this product the whole package is very
2:58
light at just 45 GRS and setup is easy
3:01
you don't have to change any settings or turn the mic on separately it just
3:07
works but how well does it work well we
3:13
could have done all of our testing in the local pool but that costs 375 for
3:19
admission and since it wasn't going to be me doing the test anyway we decided
3:23
to send the new guy to run some tests in the temperate Waters of the Canadian
3:28
Pacific I mean what better underwater
3:31
AAL experience to capture than the screams of a panicked LMG riter being
3:36
subjected to temperatures low enough to store your
3:40
leftovers we started by running some highly conventional tests using both the
3:46
hero Force internal mic and the Sennheiser elements microphone including
3:51
the B air test oh this is the story all
3:58
the now this is story all about
4:03
H and the extreme
4:12
closeup but then we got a little confused the hero 4's basic standard
4:19
waterproof housing obstructs the internal mic resulting in muffled
4:25
distant sound especially when recording
4:28
speech safe to say I'm a little salty oh
4:31
I'm salty so then the elements kicks ass out
4:37
of the water especially considering it's at the end of a stick 5 ft away oh this
4:43
is already a bad
4:46
idea but that's not what we were amped
4:49
about when it came to this product and when it comes to the difference under
4:55
the water well I'll let you guys be the judge of
4:59
that
5:26
finally at that point then that we fired up the review guide and realized that
5:32
the elements isn't really meant to be
5:37
some epic James Cameron level underwater
5:41
camera in fact it's only rated for
5:44
pressures of one bar for up to 30 m i
5:47
mean what does that mean one bar that's just sea level
5:52
here so practically speaking then it means
5:58
you can probably take this thing snorkeling for about a half an hour
6:03
which is okay I guess but I really wish
6:08
that it was rated to the same depth as the waterproof housing that it's
6:12
replacing I mean am I even going to be able to take this thing next time I want
6:16
to go cliff diving though at this point you guys are probably thinking come on
6:23
cheer up lonus focus on the other points
6:27
remember the windshield yeah I remember and you know what it
6:33
actually does do a really good job above
6:37
ground we took our hero 4 on a little bike ride comparing the sound quality
6:42
between the GoPros standard closed back housing the open-backed housing and the
6:48
elements mic and with the closed back housing the internal mic basically only
6:52
picked up noise from the bike's front tire almost nothing being said by the
6:56
rider
7:01
the open back housing started off doing a pretty reasonable job at capturing
7:05
voice but this is normal talking
7:10
volume but soon encountered its arch nemesis wind once the bike started
7:21
moving and coming back to the elements
7:25
both of these were complete non-issues yourself on a bike and you're riding by
7:29
things that of noisy like
7:32
that the windshield completely cut out
7:35
wind noise during our bike test and it even worked when wet not only that but
7:41
it doesn't capture a lot of The Creeks squeaks and other handling noises that
7:46
the internal mic does because it's mounted using a flexible shockproof
7:51
standoff so bottom line then right now
7:55
this is the only works with GoPro
7:58
certified mic can't believe it took this long you can use it with mostly the same
8:04
mentality that you would your GoPro and it sounds great compared to the onboard
8:09
mic so while it isn't the magical
8:12
product we wanted it to be if you've got $200 to blow on better GoPro audio until
8:19
the Chinese me too Brands clone it and even probably long afterward this looks
8:24
like your best choice whether you wear spiky hair and
8:28
run around describing things as over 9,000 or you hide your anime love under
8:35
the blankets crunchy roll has the fix
8:38
that you need it's the site created by anime fans for anime fans with the most
8:43
current episodes of new shows straight from Japan like Dragon Ball super and
8:46
Twin Star exorcists and all kinds of
8:50
other great anime all the content on the site is professionally subtitled and our
8:54
link gives you a whole month of free anime completely ad free then then if
8:59
you enjoy the many benefits of Premium like 1080p streaming getting new
9:03
episodes of shows straight from Japan within an hour of their Premiere and
9:07
being able to stream to a wide variety of devices including your phone then you
9:11
can continue your premium membership to crunchy roll for only $6.95 a month so
9:15
head to crunchyroll.com Linus and sign
9:18
up today get subscribed hit that like
9:21
button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video
9:25
description also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this
9:28
one and our community Forum which you should totally join