Top 5 Best Wireless Microphones 2022 | Articles | Audio and video equipment

Pho­to: Rode

A wire­less micro­phone is an indis­pens­able equip­ment for pre­sen­ta­tions, stream­ing, per­form­ing on stage, record­ing pod­casts and karaoke. This device is espe­cial­ly nec­es­sary for blog­gers, because even the best smart­phones can­not com­pare with it in terms of sound record­ing qual­i­ty.

We have col­lect­ed the best wire­less micro­phones in 2022. We tell you what wire­less micro­phones are and which ones are best suit­ed for what.

Types of micro­phones
The best wire­less micro­phones
Rode VideoM­ic Me — for smart­phone
Sennheis­er EW 112P G4 — for the cam­era
Zoom H1n — for voice record­ing
Sennheis­er XSW‑D — for YouTube, blog­gers and pub­lic speak­ing
BOYA BY-WM4 PRO-K2 — uni­ver­sal option

Types of microphones

Micro­phones are divid­ed into:

• capac­i­tor — based on the oper­a­tion of a capac­i­tor (this is a device capa­ble of accu­mu­lat­ing an elec­tric charge) and the action of an elec­tric field.
• dynam­ic — based on a mem­brane con­nect­ed to a con­duc­tor and placed in a strong mag­net­ic field.

Pros of con­denser micro­phones:

• high sen­si­tiv­i­ty and fast response to tran­si­tions (record even the small­est details, qui­et sounds and tone changes);
• more accu­rate sound trans­mis­sion, the voice sounds nat­ur­al;
• wide fre­quen­cy response (ide­al for record­ing acoustic instru­ments and vocals).

Cons of con­denser micro­phones:

• require phan­tom pow­er — an exter­nal pow­er sup­ply up to 48 V (excep­tion — USB micro­phones);
• due to increased sen­si­tiv­i­ty, extra­ne­ous sounds are record­ed, it is bet­ter to use in a room with good sound insu­la­tion, for exam­ple, in a stu­dio;
• more frag­ile design, prone to dam­age;
• not resis­tant to adverse weath­er con­di­tions, sen­si­tive to changes in tem­per­a­ture and humid­i­ty (prefer­ably in rain, snow, frost or heat);
• are more expen­sive.

Pros of dynam­ic micro­phones:

• reli­able design (not afraid of falling);
• with­stand high sound pres­sure (suit­able for record­ing loud sound sources — gui­tar and bass ampli­fiers);
• do not require phan­tom pow­er;
• less sen­si­tive to weath­er con­di­tions;
• are cheap­er.

Cons of dynam­ic micro­phones:

• small­er fre­quen­cy range (suit­able for live per­for­mances, work­ing with very loud sound sources, such as gui­tar ampli­fiers, drums);
• worse detail and trans­paren­cy of sound;
• less accu­rate sound trans­mis­sion (char­ac­ter, tim­bre).

In addi­tion, depend­ing on the direc­tion, there are:

• Omni­di­rec­tion­al micro­phones pick up sounds from all direc­tions. This is con­ve­nient, but such mod­els also catch extra­ne­ous noise.
• direc­tion­al — catch sound waves from a spe­cif­ic source. In this case, you need to care­ful­ly aim at the speak­er. Of the ben­e­fits — they do not catch extra­ne­ous noise.

The best wireless microphones

Rode VideoMic Me — for smartphone

The Rode VideoM­ic Me is a great portable micro­phone for smart­phones. Pho­to: dpreview.com

The Rode VideoM­ic Me is a direc­tion­al con­denser micro­phone for smart­phones that con­nects via a 3.5mm jack (wire­less). To use with an Android phone, you need to install a spe­cial appli­ca­tion that allows you to choose to record sound from an exter­nal micro­phone (rather than the default from the built-in one). For iPhone and oth­er iOS devices, you do not need to down­load any­thing addi­tion­al­ly, but for new mod­els you need an adapter, since they do not have a 3.5 mm jack.

Pros:

• excel­lent ratio of sound qual­i­ty and price;
• cuts off noise well (there is a wind pro­tec­tion in the kit);
• you can con­nect head­phones for direct mon­i­tor­ing of the record­ing;
• light and com­pact (80 x 21 x 38 mm, 34 g);
• Rugged alu­minum hous­ing with anti-reflec­tive ceram­ic coat­ing.

Minus­es:

• may enter the frame when record­ing on the front cam­era if the 3.5 mm jack is locat­ed on the top on the same side as the cam­era;
• case not includ­ed.

The cost of Rode VideoM­ic Me is from 4,750 rubles.

Sennheiser EW 112P G4 — for the camera

Sennheis­er EW 112P G4 is avail­able in sev­er­al ver­sions. All of them are designed to be used with the cam­era. Pho­to: bhphotovideo.com

Sennheis­er EW 112P G4 is a pro­fes­sion­al wire­less lava­lier micro­phone with radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It is designed to be con­nect­ed to a cam­era and is suit­able for shoot­ing reports, vlogs and even films.

This wire­less con­denser micro­phone is avail­able in sev­er­al ver­sions:

• Sennheis­er EW 112P G4‑A
• Sennheis­er EW 112P G4-A1

The dif­fer­ence is a larg­er receiv­er fre­quen­cy range (for G4‑A — 516–558 MHz, for G4-A1 — 470–516 MHz). They cost from 49,990 rubles.

Pros:

• sound qual­i­ty (loud, clear);
• sta­ble sig­nal with­in a radius of up to 100 meters;
• intu­itive con­trol (there are dis­plays on the receivers and trans­mit­ter, you can set the inter­ac­tion fre­quen­cies).

Minus­es:

• price;
• receiv­er and trans­mit­ter dimen­sions (82 x 64 x 24 mm, 320 g).

Zoom H1n — for voice recording

The Zoom H1n offers mul­ti­ple con­nec­tiv­i­ty options and a host of fea­tures. Pho­to: Jeff Dojil­lo, lifewire.com

The Zoom H1n is an omni­di­rec­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al stereo recorder for record­ing audio in WAV and MP3 for­mats. For pow­er, 2 AAA bat­ter­ies are used, the charge of which is enough for 57 min­utes of record­ing at max­i­mum qual­i­ty.

Pros:

• high-qual­i­ty sound for such mon­ey — the voice sounds volu­mi­nous and nat­ur­al, also suit­able for record­ing instru­ments;
• many func­tions (lim­iter for noise-free record­ing, over­dub­bing to cre­ate a rich, filled sound pic­ture by over­lay­ing record­ings in lay­ers, sen­si­tiv­i­ty and play­back speed adjust­ment, 3 Auto-on modes, built-in speak­er and dis­play, etc.);
• sev­er­al con­nec­tion options (head­phone out­put, exter­nal micro­phone input (labels or guns), can be con­nect­ed to a cam­era or via USB to a PC);
• con­ve­nient con­trol (the main but­tons are locat­ed on the front pan­el, all set para­me­ters are dis­played on a 1.25-inch dis­play);
• the pack­age includes soft­ware (stripped down ver­sions of Cubase for cre­at­ing, record­ing and mix­ing music and Wave­Lab for edit­ing and mas­ter­ing).

Minus­es:

• poor equip­ment (the micro­phone itself, bat­ter­ies, soft­ware keys and doc­u­men­ta­tion, no addi­tion­al wind pro­tec­tion);
• aver­age auton­o­my;
• high lev­el of intrin­sic noise (you need to care­ful­ly adjust the sen­si­tiv­i­ty, any touch on the case caus­es noise).

Zoom H1n costs from 8,190 rubles.

Sennheiser XSW‑D — for YouTube, bloggers and public speaking

Sennheis­er XSW‑D is a wire­less lava­lier suit­able for smart­phone and cam­era. Pho­to: guitar.com

The Sennheis­er XSW‑D Lava­lier Set Wire­less Micro­phone Sys­tem starts at Rs.

• lava­lier con­denser micro­phone ME2-II with clip,
• XSW‑D trans­mit­ter with 3.5 mm jack (1/8″),
• XSW‑D receiv­er (XLR Male con­nec­tor),
• belt hold­er,
• USB‑A to USB‑C adapter cable.

Pros:

• high-qual­i­ty sound, trans­mits voice well (even in street con­di­tions);
• oper­at­ing range — up to 70 meters;
• com­pact dimen­sions of the receiv­er and trans­mit­ter (109 x 28 x 24 mm and 86 x 28 x 24 mm, respec­tive­ly), will eas­i­ly fit even in your pock­et;
• good equip­ment.

Minus­es:

• high price;
• aver­age auton­o­my (up to 5 hours);
• use­less indi­ca­tion of the remain­ing bat­tery charge (green — full, yel­low — from about 70% to a min­i­mum, it is not clear when it is time to charge).

BOYA BY-WM4 PRO-K2 — universal option

BOYA BY-WM4 PRO is avail­able in sev­er­al ver­sions, which dif­fer in the avail­able con­nec­tors, the num­ber of chan­nels and trans­mit­ters. Pho­to: BOYA

The Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K2 two-chan­nel lava­lier radio sys­tem can be used in con­junc­tion with cam­eras (pho­to and video), smart­phones, tablets and even voice recorders. This ver­sion includes 2 lava­lier con­denser micro­phones, 2 trans­mit­ters and 1 receiv­er. The micro­phone is omni­di­rec­tion­al, equipped with a remov­able foam wind­screen. All radio mod­ules are pow­ered by two AAA bat­ter­ies.

Sta­ble radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion at a dis­tance of up to 120 meters.

The kit includes a con­ve­nient hard case for stor­age and trans­porta­tion. Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K2 costs from 14,990 rubles.

Pros:

• wide appli­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties;
• 2 record­ing chan­nels;
• excel­lent sound qual­i­ty with audio con­trol dur­ing record­ing;
• com­pact and light­weight trans­mit­ters and receiv­er (45 x 70 x 35 mm, 47 g);
• ease of con­nec­tion of radio mod­ules.

Minus­es:

• a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in the com­mu­ni­ca­tion radius in the pres­ence of phys­i­cal obsta­cles between the trans­mit­ter and receiv­er;
• one- and two-chan­nel sound record­ing is car­ried out in mono mode.

The BOYA BY-WM4 PRO wire­less micro­phone sys­tem is avail­able in dif­fer­ent ver­sions:

— Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K1 — with one trans­mit­ter;
— Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K3 — with a Light­ning con­nec­tor for Apple devices;
— Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K4 — two-chan­nel with a Light­ning con­nec­tor;
— Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K5 — for devices with a USB Type‑C con­nec­tor;
— Boya BY-WM4 Pro-K6 — two-chan­nel with a USB Type‑C con­nec­tor.