King Ghidora

I've seen new Sony MZ-NH700 and the Sony MZ-NHF800 models go for under $100 on eBay but it's been a while. One company in particular was selling a lot of them. It was pretty rare to see the NHF800 under $100 but it did happen once in a while. I say the NH700 goe for as little as $75. I have the email address of the place that sold so many if you want it. Actually this auction looks like one of theirs even though the information is a little different than before. It's the same ad layout they used before and the location is very close to the location they listed before. They quoted me a price of $120 shipped for the NH700 but I ended up buying a used NHF800 for $115 which came with a bunch of blank discs. Buying used might be a good idea for you. A lot of audiophile type people are selling their HIMD recorders and buying Zoom H4's and Edirol R-09's because they record in 24 bit. So there are a few used HIMD recorders on the market. That's how I got mine. If you're really strapped for cash you could get an iRiver mp3 recorder. They aren't the quality of HIMD but they are pretty good. At high bitrates MP3 really sounds pretty good. The biggest problem on the iRiver's is that the mic pre-amps aren't all that great. But I just bought 2 IFP-890 recorders to use with my video business for $20 each. They sometimes sell for less than $15. They're only 256 meg but they do a decent job of recording. I got a very good set of phones with one of the 890's I bought too. Both sets of buds were Sennheiser's but not the best of their line. Still one set was very good and the other was just average. You might also think about buying a standard MD recorder. They often sell for under $40 and they really do a good job unless you want to upload your recordings to a computer for editing or whatever. You end up with a second generation analog recording. It's still pretty darn good but it isn't as good as HIMD obviously.

I know about choosing not to download images. There are those that don't. Every board I've ever posted on wanted people to only post images when it was a needed part of the information being conveyed. Posting image after image for no good reason would violate the TOS of pretty much every board I've ever posted on. I also know these are cheap earbuds. That doesn't make them sound bad. Lots of people associate price with quality no matter how many times they see examples of how that's not always the case. Giant Squid mics are a perfect example. And as I said I don't know what model or brand the first buds I got are. I'm pretty convinced that the second set are the 300's. They aren't as good as the first set. I saw the list of phones posted. That doesn't mean I should be expected to read the mind of a poster. If he only wanted phones suitable for mobile use maybe he should have said so instead of being rude. But some people think it's cool to insult other people's intelligence. Usually those people aren't nearly as smart as they think they are. Just like you trying to explain to me that 7506's are different from the phones listed in the post. That doesn't preclude mentioning other types of phones. If he didn't want to use the information that's certainly his prerogative. But the rude comments were uncalled for. And no matter how long you try to defend them it will still be the case that the rude comments weren't called for. I don't expect you to understand that because you jumped in with rude comments of your own. I don't know about you but I'm here to help people if I can and receive help when I can. I don't insult people for trying to help me. Obviously you don't share that maxim. I'll continue to view those who don't understand basic human respect as someone who will suffer the consequences of their own folly. Don't be surprised when you have to face the other side of uncivil actions when you promote the dearth of civility yourself. It may not be all that pleasant for you when it happens. In fact it can be extremely distasteful when civilization breaks down. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind is how the axiom goes.

I don't wear my V6's walking up and down the street either. I have never done that in the 15 years plus that I've owned them. But nothing was said of the intended use of the phones in this discussion. I do take my V6's when I shoot video for my projects. I monitor the audio with them. But there was no reason to get insulting concerning my suggestion. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what model Senn.'s came with the iRiver MP3 player/recorders I just bought. I bought one for my wife and I liked the sound quality well enough to use it to record voice for my video projects plus the headphones were excellent for earbuds. Considering I got the whole package for $20 I thought it was a steal. Those buds will compare favorably to any buds I've ever listened to. I actually got a different set of buds with the second IFP-890 I bought though. They are nearly identical to the first set but not exactly. And these do say Sennheiser on them. The second set I got does look like the MX300 which is sold pretty cheap elsewhere. These are decent phones but not like the first set. The first set that came with the player I got for my wife are considerably better than the second set. Both are decent but the first set was very good. I bought the players from different locations so I assume a person could get the good phones from the first location I bought from. I would guess that the set that came with the first iRiver was either the MX400 or MX500. They resemble both models. But all of the models in that range are similar but the 450 has a bend that mine don't have so that isn't what they are. It's kinda hard to tell from the photos I see though. I just know the first set I got sound really good and the second set is pretty good (not as good as the first set). And I never said the images were a problem for me. I just said they were a hassle for anyone on dialup. Even when I had a 6mbps connection I didn't particularly like to download images for no reason in a thread.

I didn't say you were saying vinyl was crap compared to CD. I merely responded to you seeming to question whether I could tell the difference between an analog signal and a digital signal. I merely explained why it was easy to tell the difference. What I don't understand is if you can't tell that analog is better than digital how is it you decided your turntable sounds better than your CD player? Aren't you hearing the difference between an analog and a digital signal there? BTW most vinyl albums started life as a tape recording. The only albums that weren't on tape at one time that I know of are albums that were recorded digitally (which was also on tape btw but not the same as analog tape). So yes tape can sound as good as an album. But cassette decks that record that quality were pretty rare. You could get them but they generally cost a lot of money. The average home cassette deck will lose some high end and low end sound. I used to record in Dolby B then play back my tapes without Dolby turned on to get back the upper frequencies. I just lived with the extra tape noise. And I had what were considered to be very good tape decks at the time. I still use one of those decks in fact because few other decks matched it's specs. But it has always lost some signal on both ends of the spectrum. Most decks do. I've certainly heard lots of re-released, remastered albums sound far worse than the original. Mastering is an art form and those that think they can make it come out better just because they are using new equipment are just wrong IMO. Probably they just released a remastered version as a hyped up reason to buy stuff you already own. Vinyl from the early 60's and before was certainly inferior to CD but vinyl from the mid 70's on was very good. I still haven't actually heard CD sound that exceeds it. Some say SACD can exceed it but I'll reserve my judgement until I hear it myself. These formats are generally only a few degrees separated in their best form IMO so all this discussion is really moot. If it's done right vinyl and CD and HIMD can sound exceptionally good. When I think back on how these formats compare to the quality of stuff that I heard early in my life I can only laugh at what we thought was HI-FI in the old days. Audio has come a very long way. We can exceed the very best of recordings from the early 60's with HIMD as it exists now. I can certainly live with the quality I get from my own recordings. For less than $300 I can make recordings that are light years better than anything from the 50's. Remember that a lot of recording stars re-recorded their own stuff because they wanted the higher quality in later years. So 1950's artists recorded their albums again in the 70's just so the world would have a better recording of their work. They made it sound like the original only much better.

Well ain't you guys too cool. You never said anything about where you would be wearing them cool breeze. Just maybe you might notice that I said they were large in my first post about them. BTW I figured out why the ear buds that came with my wife's iRiver sounded so good. They're Sennheisers. But since all I got for trying to help was a testy response I won't bother trying to help you again. You're probably too cool to want to get a very good set of Senn.'s with an MP3 player to boot for $20. So no way I'd want to help someone who is obviously so cool they don't need help. Hey they must sound better if you pay more right? Who wants to save money anyway? And since we're at it why not forget posting multiple photos of phones in a forum so those with dialup connections can actually read your post without waiting half an hour. People who post multiple images for no reason are the kinds of people I would cross the street to avoid. I mean really. Nothing says geek like flooding a forum with photos where no one else posts them except when they are useful.

I can hear a tremendous difference in the CD players around today and the ones that were around in the early days of CD. And I'm talking about the audio quality. For one thing 16 years doesn't really get you back to the early days of CD. I had a CD player in 1985. I probably was on my third or fourth CD player by 1989. The quality had risen considerably by that time from the first and second generation players that I started out with. Still I can hear a difference between what was a quality CD player that I bought in the late 90's and the DVD player I'm using now. I suppose it takes a certain level of equipment to really be able to hear the difference between CD players. I don't know what kind of sound system you have but I have a very good one. Perhaps that's why I can hear a difference and you can't. I don't know that obviously. I just know that I generally use my DVD player to listen to CD's because it sounds so much better. Plus it won't skip like every CD player I've ever owned when the music gets cranked up. What can I say. I can hear a big difference between an analog signal and a digital signal. It's not as differenent now as it was 20 years ago but it's still different. Maybe you just haven't been around long enough to remember what vinyl sounded like on a decent turntable with a decent stylus. I've been interested in audio since the late 1950's so that might have something to do with it. I think I could show you the differences between analog and digital pretty quickly if I had the chance. Analog has a much fuller sound than digital. Do you know that a lot of recording artists hated CD's when they first came out? They claimed they destroyed the hard work they put into creating the perfect sound. And they were right. But the trade offs were justified and eventually CD's became much better. Even by 1989 CD sound had improved a lot. Heck CDR's were on the market by that time even though they cost a fortune. Keep in mind that the differences now are small. I've had my turntable in the attic for years now for good reason. Admittedly I've tried to save my equipment and my vinyl for special occassions but the truth is CD sound is much better than it was at first and I was never one of people who screamed for the death of CD anyway. I knew it sounded inferior but it had so much other stuff going for it that it was always going to be a winner. It certainly had fewer flaws than cassettes and I still had memories of worn out records and out of alignment 8-track tapes. I'm not complaining about CD sound but there is a difference. In fact one of the main reasons I tried to preserve my analog equipment was so I could prove that to people if they really wanted to know about it. If you look around the net you'll find a lot of people who agree with what I'm saying BTW. You'll also see people who say the latest in CD tech is actually better than vinyl in certain ways. And they are right. Vinyl had some limitations even on the best equipment. But overall I still prefer the sound of vinyl to CD even if it's SACD.

I also use first generation HIMD which records at the same quality as the latest and greatest HIMD recorders but the price is about half or less than the latest. There are still places selling new MZ-NH700 and NFH800 models. I've seen them sell on eBay for arund $75 but that's getting rare now. The price is usually over $125. There was a place selling a lot of first gen. HIMD models which quoted me a price of $120 without having to go through eBay. I can PM you their email address if you want. I wouldn't want to post it in an open forum. Another big advantage of the first gen recorders is that they operate on AA batteries. Some would argue that the gumsticks used in later models are better but I like being able to buy batteries at any gas station or 7/11. Plus of course you can use rechargeables that you can buy anywhere also.

Since the middle 1990's MD has had the capacity to do effective 20-bit dynamic range in the MDS-JA3ES deck. When I went looking for information to back up what I had said yesterday I was relying on things I had heard in the past. I found a quote listing MD as having a wider dynamic range potential. But after tracking down the source of this potential it became clear that this was possibly limited to this particular deck and possibly other subsequent home decks. I really don't know if this is done with HIMD recorders but I now doubt it. So my assertion may be incorrect. It was based on a comment I saw which I think probably doesn't apply to HIMD recorders. As far as the potential advantage being limited to home decks all I can say was that I was referring to the potential of MD. I really don't think there are too many people who could hear the difference between a vinyl to HIMD recording as compared to a factory CD except for the possible artifacts that come with vinyl. I still believe that vinyl is clearly superior to any digital format I've ever heard and I believe HIMD recorders do an excellent A/D conversion so the results are going to be excellent and very much in line with the quality of CD's. But unless someone can show me that HIMD recorders use the method described on the web site I linked where a portion of the process is done in 20 bit then I don't believe vinyl to HIMD will be superior to CD. Wow I don't agree with that at all. Modern CD and DVD players are far superior to old CD players IMO. I have a Sony DVD player that's about a year old also and it sounds much better than my Sony CD player which really isn't all that old. It is probably only 10 years old and it sounds far superior to the CD players I had before that. There has been a steady improvement of CD sound quality over the years IMO. At least that's been my experience. Even cheap DVD players sound better than relatively high quality CD players from the early years of CD audio. When I first bought a CD player (about a month after they first appeared on the market) I thought it sounded far inferior to vinyl but of course there were the durability and convenience issues so I stuck with the format like everyone else. There was a lot of complaints from people about the inferior quality of CD compared to vinyl in those days. Now the difference is only slight but vinyl still sounds better when it's new.

Radio Shack puts their name on the actual Boostaroo amps and sells them as their own brand. But they are made by Boostaroo. Mine is a RS model in fact. RS does stuff like this a lot. At one time they wouldn't sell anything that didn't have their name on it. Now they do sell stuff with other brand names on it but they always rebadged different things and sold them under their own brand. The Boostaroos go back to the period when everything RS sold was under their own brand. Maybe that's why they continue to sell them with their brand name on them. They already had the equipment to rebadge the Boostaroos so there wasn't any reason to stop doing it.

Very true Sparky. There are people who can hear differences in equipment though. I can hear some differences but not on the level some people can. I can hear the difference between analog and digital audio for example or at least I could when digital audio first came out. It's been a long time since I tried a test to compare. My hearing is not what it was 25 years ago for sure. Comparison audio tests are pretty difficult for almost everyone in fact. And for us older types it gets even harder. The best way to find out whether you think something is good or not is to live with it for a while unless of course we're testing 128 bit MP3's against pure virgin vinyl or something. Then it cam be very obvious. Speakers have big differences and sometimes CD players have a big quality advantage over other CD players. But I rarely hear much difference between one brand of amplifier over another unless it's real quality compared to real junk.

You're right A440. You won't get much of a signal unless you have a battery in the MS907. It is actually shielded from receiving the plug in power that comes from MD's or consumer video cameras or mp3 recorders etc.. BTW phanton power can actually be several different voltages but it is almost universally recognized as 48 volts. There are 24 volt versions of phantom power and even 12 volt phantom power devices. It's very unlikely that you will run across many mics that use the odd voltages. They are usually designed to work with specific equipment or they are practically antiques from another age. Also phantom power is usually transferred through an XLR type plug or sometimes a 1/4 inch plug. You don't see miniplugs using phantom power. For those of you who don't know if you happen to connect a mic that isn't designed for phantom power to a device that provides phantom power the results are likely to be toasted mic parts. So it's a good idea to learn the type of mic you're dealing with and the type of recording device supplying power to a mic that you are using. FWIW almost all pro type gear now uses 48 volt phantom power. Many pros consider plug in powered devices to be toys. But there is a large selection of quality mic equipment that uses plug in power. Still if you plan on going pro you might want to start out with phantom power devices so you won't end up buying all new equipment somewhere down the road. There are portable recording devices that provide and use phantom power like the Zoom H4. They generally are bigger, cost more, and use far more battery power than plug in powered devices. That's why we still see a large market for plug in power mics and recorders. You just can't power a phantom powered mic with a AA battery for hours like you can a MD recorder. That's one of the major benefits of MD equipment IMO.

Yes I do Sparky. At least potentially better. The main advantage HIMD has over CD is a wider dynamic range. But there are several factors involved in whether you will get better sound recording PCM HIMD's than CD's. First is the quality of the turntable and the cartridge. There are huge differences in quality when it comes to turntables. Then it's neccessary to use a pre-amp for a turntable so the quality of that is also a potential point where the quality will become less than CD. The A/D converter in a HIMD is very good. But whether it competes with studio quality A/D converters for CD is a tough issue. The differences are so small that few people can actually hear a difference. The main reason for my claim that HIMD is superior to CD is the dynamic range issue. If you record your own material you will do much better recording to HIMD than you would CD unless you have studio quality equipment. Also there is the gapless playback issue. CDR's do not do gapless playback of albums that have songs that were originally gapless on vinyl. So you will experience a pause between songs that you might have learned to expect to be one continuous sound if you originally listed to the source on vinyl. MD doesn't have this problem. But the bottom line is that other technologies exceed both HIMD and CD. 24 bit recordings of new vinyl played on high quality equipment are going to be considerably better than either HIMD or CD. And you can get 24 bit audio with several recorders currently on the market. The Zoom H4 and the Edirol R-09 are two good examples. The differences between HIMD and CD aren't all that great IMO. But there is certainly a difference with a 24 bit recording device. If you want the best quality in a mobile player record from new vinyl to a 24 bit recorder. But don't hold your breath and expect things to remain the same. The market is in flux right now. In a few years I expect we will see even better quality recorders.

A440 is correct about getting the right connector. That's why I said your adapter needs to connect two mono signals into a stereo signal. Mostly what you see at RS is a splitter for sharing a headphone connection. But they do sell an adapter that connects two mono cables and outputs to a stereo cable. I have at least one laying around.

I still have a decent turntable but it's been in the attic for quite a while. I only rarely get it out. Albums do sound better than CD's but you don't get too many turntables with remotes and albums wear out way too fast. I can hear a difference after 5 plays of an album. That's why I used to buy an album and make a cassette copy of it until the cassette wore out. They I would make another cassette. I have albums that have only been played a very few times still to this day. CD's have come a long way since the early days though. They do sound pretty good. But if you record an album to a HIMD in PCM mode it will sound better than a CD. PCM on a HIMD is superior to CD IMO. Still nothing beats a pure analog sound with no tape hiss in the background. Vinyl still sounds better than anything else for the first few times you play it.

If your adapter connects two mono signals into a stereo signal it will give you stereo. You should be able to find an adapter like that at Radio Shack. IMO you should use a cable between the adapter and the MD so you won't get handling noise from the adapter.

If the short is in the cable it will be very easy to fix. You need to check that first. And the connection may not be seating correctly as poe mentioned. If you don't get better results using a different cable it may be difficult to fix. If the jack itself is loose inside the MD player it's been my experience with all things electronic that the chances of successfully fixing something like this aren't too good. You can sometimes jostle the connection and get it to work but if there's a short there it will eventually get worse. There are still uses for this player though. If you have another MD you can record your discs to it and use the R37 as a player. You can also still use the R37 to record to the mic input. If you don't need that try selling it on eBay to someone who does need it. If I didn't already have several recorders I might buy something like that.

You've got a short somewhere.

I know I'm repeating myself but if you don't give the Sony MDR-7506 a chance you are making a mistake. I'm not saying you have to buy them. There are obviously other fine phones on the market but the 7506's are something special. If you check out their ratings on Amazon you'll see that these phones are rated higher than anything made by Sennheiser and that's at half the cost of some Senn. models. Then read the reviews there. They've been called "the best headphones ever" when they were still being sold as MDR-V6's. There are lots of reviews of them on that site also. They also rate higher on zzSounds than the best from Senn.. You can read a lot of reviews of them on this site. Notice that one person brought down their score considerably because he said they weren't durable so he gave them a 5 out of 10. I've been using the same set for about 15 years so I disagree with the assertion that they aren't durable. I will agree with the other common complaint which is that a coiled cord isn't a good idea. But these phones were designed at a time when all phones had coiled cords. It isn't that much of a problem but one guy said he would have given them a 10 if not for the coiled cord. He gave them an 8 instead. That's the kind of complaint people have with them. The sound quality is rarely questioned. They just sound great. You can find reviews of them all over the web and the results are always good. They are excellent phones. They are foldable too. If you don't mind the extra size of over the ear phones (which are the best sounding phones you can get of course) you will have a hard time beating these phones. Lots of people do use them when they're mobile. I do sometimes. The bottom line is they are VERY hard to beat when it comes to their sound quality which is what it's really all about IMO.

If you want top quality get yourself as set of Sony MDR-7506's. They are the industry standard for studios. They maybe aren't the best phones for mobile use (because they are over the ear and fairly large) but they sound very good. It may sound ridiculous but the best ear buds I've ever heard came with my wife's iRiver IFP-890 mp3 player. We paid less than $20 for the iRiver and the phones. I've seen them on eBay for that price several times lately. Yeah I know. I tried to tell my wife that I had a good MD she could use but she said it was too big. When we got the iRiver (just last week) I was amazed at how well the phones sounded. They can easily compete with much more expensive phones that don't come with an mp3 player as a bonus. BTW the iRiver doesn't sound bad either. It's no MD but it's better than an iPod (both my kids have iPods so I have direct experience with them - they're just too flat sounding). Plus they record from a stereo mic or the built in radio. I intend to borrow it for my video business occassionally.

I've had one Boostaroo for several years and I haven't had a single problem with it. I know several other people who have them and they haven't had problems either. Maybe the quality control has dropped off since I bought my unit. You might try looking for an older unit like for sale on eBay so you could get one from a time when they were better built. Also it seems to me that you could possibly replace the cable that you're having problems with. I know the case is glued together but you could probably pry the case apart and glue it back together yourself. You would need to solder a new cable onto the board while you had it apart I assume. Solder irons can be bought for $5 or so some places. You will want one with a sharp point on it. I buy them at Big Lots (a discount store) when I have one quit which is only about every 5 years. I don't worry about buying models that have replaceable tips because it's so cheap to buy a whole new iron. Also could you explain how your cables get broken? I searched Google for people having similar problems and I couldn't find anyone that mentioned this problem.

The things A440 said are true but people still do sometimes use SM57's. Sometimes people confuse the SM57 with the SM58 which is nearly identical but the SM58 is created strictly for vocals. The 57's are tailored to a degree but nothing like the 58's. A lot of people record with 57's for their instruments and voice. Both the 57 and the 58 are designed for live performances though. They do a superb job of limiting handling noise so they are at the top for handheld mics. They are the most popular mics on the market for live performaces. The most important thing I can think of here is the fact that the SM57 is a balanced output mic. MD recorders use unbalanced equipment. You will have problems if you try to use balanced mics with a MD without using a conversion cable or a mixer that is capable of converting the signal. There's an article describing the differences between unbalanced and balanced equipment on this web site. You can build your own converters if you're interested. If you can solder you can find the right parts to do the job on this web site. Condenser mics are much more sensitive than dynamic mics. That's why they are much more popular for recording. Pretty much all of the mics you will find that are designed to work with MD recorders are condenser mics. Because they are more sensitive they are harder to make into handheld mics but that's not what your question was so I won't go into that. There are some very good mics that will work with your MD recorder. I record music pretty often with my MD recorders. I don't know if your mixer can convert to an unbalanced signal or not. It's actually pretty hard to find a decent mixer that works with unbalanced equipment. The Sign XLR-Pro Mixer is an example of a mixer that accepts balanced or unbalanced mics and puts out either a balanced or an unbalanced signal. You can actually get around the output limitations of some mixers by using the headphone out jack as the line to your MD recorder. If your mixer handles balanced mics and has a headphone out jack you could possibly make it work with your MD recorder. If you post exactly what mixer you have maybe we can help you determine exactly what you can do with it.

Hey I like my MD equipment too but you really need to get out more!

I don't take them with me when I go out either except for possibly listening in a car. I've worn out various sets of ear buds since I've owned the Sony's. But the thread doesn't really mention what type of phones and that implies over the ear and over the head phones. You just can't get the same kind of sound from any other type of phones. I own a plethora of different phones though. I use them all for different reasons.

They've been mentioned before but nothing compares to Sony MDR-7506 that I've ever heard. I actually have the MDR-V6 which was the original name of these phones. They discontinued them once then got so many complaints they brought back the MDR-V6 but it was not the same headphones as the original. That ticked people off even worse. Eventually Sony got their act together and released the original MDR-V6 under a new name so that no one would confuse them with the cheap imitations Sony had tried to pawn off on their customers. So the name MDR-7506 was born but it was the same phones as the original MDR-V6. These phones are comfortable,durable (mine are at least 17 years old and still sound great) and best of all of course they sound great. They actually have bass that sounds like bass instead of cheap imitation bass like you see on most phones. The upper end is clear and life like. They are just incredibly good phones. There are some other phones that sound great but not in the same way. Sennheisers have incredible detail for example but IMO (which is shared by many people) they just don't reproduce bass sounds in a natural way. The MDR-V6 / MDR-7506 is an industry standard. They are the favorite of studio engineers by all accounts I've ever seen. They've been called the best phones ever made by more than one person. I'm know that other phones have their fans but I've listened to what were said to be the best Senn's at the time I listened to them and they didn't compare IMO. And they do sell for less than $100. You can even get replacement pads for them after they wear out. You can expect to keep these phones for years to come. Their one drawback IMO is that they aren't great for mobile use but back when these were developed there was no use for mobile phones because the were designed before Walkman type devices became popular.

What you mean by "isn't outrageously expensive" goes a long way in determining what mic would be best for you. If you want a stereo mic you might choose one of these. I can vouch for the Nady CM-2S in the $100-$120 range. I have a couple of clips of my recordings of a bluegrass band posted online here and here. The most common criticism of this mic is that it picks up too much echo but I think that problem can be limited. Keep in mind that these clips are just a practice session recorded in a living room so conditions are not ideal. Still you might get an idea of what to expect from the Nady. If you want to go more expensive the AT822 is a popular choice at around $250. Going higher you might choose a matched pair of Rode NT5's which is over $400. You might want a cheaper mic than the Nady. You could choose the Sony ECM-MS907 at around $75 or the AT Pro 24 for around $70. There are many other quality mics available in all price ranges. You might want a headset type mic for binaural type recordings. You might want a mic that is easy to conceal so you can tape where tapers aren't really welcome. Or you could choose a mono mic for just a piano and a single singer. There a lot of different types of mics in the world. I would choose the Nady for the situation you described. In fact I did choose the Nady for similar situations. I also have a Sony ECM-MS907 that I've had a few years. I have many mics actually because different situations call for different mics. Maybe you could get back with us and be more specific on what you want. A little research here could go a long way for you. For a single mic I think a single point stereo mic is a good choice but I'm sure there are others who disagree with me. There are folks here who put together excellent mics for various purposes. I'd suggest that you read a few of the threads already posted on this subject. There are many of them. This subject comes up a lot.