Which Is The Best Wireless WI-FI Microphone System?

0:00 in this video I'm going to compare these tiny wireless microphones the hollyland lm2 the DJI mic mini and the road Wireless micro as well as the larger ones with transmitters that record 32-bit float audio the road Wireless Pro the DJI Mike 2 and the saramonic ultra but sadly I can't give you any audio examples from the saramonic as this is a pre-production one and it bricked during a firmware update they're sending me a replacement but when gets me in time for this video I will probably make a short unlisted video demonstrating the audio quality which I'll put in the pinned comment and description all of the audio in this video is using the microphones that I feature there's a graphic on screen telling you which is which I recommend

0:46 using headphones if you really want to hear what they sound like if you're going to play it back on the phone you're not going to get any idea are you they aren't processed there is some breaths removed though and a few mouth clicks but no EQ and no compression they all have many things in common they all have a microphone built into the transmitter and a dedicated receiver and they operate on the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi frequency they all have charging cases and come with two transmitters the only transmitters you can buy and use individually are the DJI ones and that's the only way to get their white versions all of them sound pretty good but some some are better than others but this can

1:32 be subjective in this video you can decide which sound you prefer not only am I switching between each microphone but also with lab mics if they support them and occasionally noise reduction too the road Wireless Pro DJI mic 2 mik mini and saramonic Ultra can all work with mobile phones and other USB type-c devices as well as a 3.5mm output for a traditional camera the hollyland lck M2 confusingly comes in various versions lightning only USB type-c only 3.5 mm only and a combo with all three all are available in black or white except the camera one which is black only roads Wireless micro is only available as lightning or USB type- C it does not

2:17 support a 3.5 mm output they all come with clips and magnets to attach to a person and have wind Mars the DJI Mike mini and Road Wireless Pro are the only ones that let you keep the wind mffs on the transmitters in the charging case which is fantastic the others require a separate pouch which is a pain and pouches that aren't zipped are not ideal dji's cases are quite chunky but very well made the mini one is of course smaller than the Mike 2 case the road Wireless Pro case is good and the USBC charging port can be used to offload recorded Clips simultaneously this is the only one that does that but you do have to load up the road Central app for the files to be accessible dji's Mike 2

3:03 and Mike mini and the saramonic have the easiest win master to put on the road Wireless Pro one is a bit fiddly and it makes accessing the record button difficult and the record light hard to see the road Wireless micros is neat but it's a shame you can't keep them on in the charging case I love that compact charging case it would be nice if that was all you needed to take out when filming but you need those wind muffs if you are going to be using them outside the hollyland L m2's wind muffs are ridiculous they're a nightmare to put on and make the smallest mics in this test the biggest they also cover the button that switches the noise reduction on or off and importantly the lights tell you which mode it's in and if it's powered on I made my own ones which are smaller and you can actually keep them on in the

3:49 case the road microphones are the only ones without any built-in noise reduction and I'm fine with that I don't want it baked in I never use it I do it in post I need to and it means there's no chance of me accidentally turning it on which is a disaster happens all the time that's a robot vacuum that you can hear in the background to help with this little section here if you're using the DJI Mike mini with a receiver you can set the noise reduction level to basic or strong via the mimo app or when using an action 5 or pocket 3 in the camera settings where it's shown as low or high have no idea why the naming isn't consistent the noise reduction is adaptive so in a quiet environment you're not going to tell the difference between the two there needs to be a fair amount of noise for you to tell the difference whilst you can connect a DJI mic to a phone or camera directly

4:36 via Bluetooth I don't advise doing it the quality is terrible as it's only 16 khz instead of 48 khz use the receiver strange if you connect one to a phone via Bluetooth it's only the higher setting which is crazy the audio is already bad enough all the ones with noise reduction have a button on the transmitter to turn it on or off this is horrible as a number times I've accidentally pressed that button is numerous and my audio is ruined thankfully you can change the settings on the DJI mic to receiver to disable this button as well as the mic mini by using the mimo app I think it's especially important with the mic 2 when using them with a receiver because the side LED color is green when paired with the receiver and when noise reduction is turned on it changes to yellow and they

5:22 look far too similar it's more obvious if you're in Bluetooth mode as it changes from Blue to Yellow but yes I disable those buttons hly land and ceremoni need to give us this option too I've seen a lot of videos about the DJI Mike mini where people have been using the strong noise reduction to obliterate anything but them talking and it just doesn't sound good at all it doesn't make sense either because we can see things but if you're trying to remove the actual sound of them it just doesn't make sense see the sound right now what can you hear we certainly can't see it that's sure easily solved now you can see what you're hearing and also my body is acting as a a barrier Shield to that

6:10 so it doesn't sound anywhere near as loud as if you're facing this actual where the noise is because it is a 360 polar pattern it's going to pick up everything it's not directional microphone right now I'm filming in the had lasso Street in Richmond my hometown and there's some very loud American people but it's okay because they are behind me you can see them and my body is yes acting as a shield the other thing you could do though is doing an establishing shot and then have that beforehand and you'll be fine I I will sell everything and to yes it's noisy but you can see the sound yeah I mean there's times when maybe you need

6:56 to do a retake one tip that's really going to help you when dealing with sound is to record a wild track record a minute of the audio where you are so you can use it as an underlay where needed when there's some gaps or if the noise reduction you used is just too strong you put this underneath it it's going to sound a lot better is there a case for using noise reduction when you are recording somebody who's talking in the car well maybe if they're speaking quietly potentially but really just speaking normally I would say no maybe a bit of low cut but again do that in post after all we can see that I'm in a car driving along if you remov all of that sound it would be really weird you can

7:41 see the sound with driving so therefore it's absolutely fine how did you cook that fake steak oh I grilled it what on a on a pan oh like a okay you know that's a proper steak yeah yeah yeah you how did you do your I just did in a frying pan yeah did you yeah do you know what you're going to have not what I had last week what did you have last time I had my usual and they remember me as well what's your usual the summon to start yeah and the summon and what and the summon as a main oh I think I'll still have that

8:28 wine but summon which one the bite summon I'm going to have that I think yeah and then I'll have the bad time with the prawns jeez what is it you're having anyway it's a manly cocktail of some sort you in it manly things well that tells me a lot do you remember where the car is do you hey do you remember where the car is vely you sure yeah I know it's over there you sure y the roadwi is Pro DJI Mike 2 and saramonic Ultra are the easiest to change settings with as they have displays the DJI and saramonic ones are superior as they have touch screens and are very intuitive I use the road Central app most of the time with the road Wireless Pro because it's so much

9:15 easier especially since it's also a Time Cod generator like the ceram monic Ultra this is a great feature but neither can be jammed from another device the receivers have to be the master time code devices we can still use them with other time code setups the DJI Mike 2's most serious emission is that lack of time code but I expect it'll be addressed in the coming out at some point mik 3 dji's mik mini has five levels of gain control via this dial on the receiver and the camera receiver for the lar M2 has three levels roads Wireless micro has minimal settings in the road Central app three levels again and the ability to switch between stereo audio and merged you can't even can see the levels when changing the gain to do

10:02 that you need to open up the road reporter app the micro has intelligent gain assist to make sure your audio doesn't clip you can't turn it off but it's probably for the best when using it with an iPhone with only three gain settings dji's Mike mini has a clipping control option but this is only when using them with the receiver keep an eye on the levels when using them with an osmo camera all of them let you output stereo or mono stereo is generally the way to go as it keeps each microphone separate on the left and right channel if mixed into one it can make adjusting levels difficult in post if one person is speaking at a different level to the others the hollyland lm2 receivers are only mono not stereo and I have no idea why when using the lm2 microphones with the camera receiver a button on that switches between mono and stereo I would

10:48 have preferred these buttons to be switches as it's far too easy to press a button accidentally the road Wireless Pro and two DJI mics all have a safety Channel function where one channel is recorded at a lower volume than the other this is of course mono only so if you're using two mics then they will be merged together it's been a while since I did any lens whacking shots in a video but the microphones on the Christmas tree were perfect subject but of course it does date the video a little bit it would be even worse if I added Christmas music and then double down on the whole your Tide theme by using shots from the sponsor of this video story blocks unsurprisingly there's lots of shots in this category but maybe it's best to

11:34 move away from Christmas onto other things you might be celebrating or looking forward to in 2025 with over 2.3 million video assets there's a lot to choose from but it's not just video clips there's over 88,000 audio assets 30 plus th000 video templates and over 400,000 image assets and they're all royaltyfree there's also lots of my own shots there to use in your videos I thoroughly recommend the cat shots to get started with the unlimited downloads for one monthly or annual subscription head to this link I've got about seven microphones recording me right now which is uh

12:19 Overkill two more actually got the internal micro pocket 3 so I'm am going to get something it's going to be fine but you normally just using one microphone must best way of actually making sure that you are getting the audio the safest way to record audio is by using 32bit float internal recording then isn't even impossible to have it too quiet or too loud should be recoverable 32-bit float is amazing and it can save you in so many different situations but it's not magic what it's not going to do is fix any clothes rustling any wind noise and you only going to know that's happening is one thing well from playing it back after the fact which isn't so good but

13:06 headphones if your camera has a headphone jack use it as long as you're not filming yourself like me couldn't work right now but rest of the time yeah and also because the camera is recording 24 bit audio not 32bit audio so you need to make sure your levels are also correct but yeah it's not magic use headphones the DJI Mike Killer feature is the ability to connect up to to two microphones to their osmo pocket 3 and action 5 Pro and one to their action 4 and they can be a mini or mic 2 or two are the same instead of Wi-Fi they use a proprietary Bluetooth called osmo audio and the quality seems to be about the same to my ear you can use all of the other systems with these cameras too but only via USBC direct connection with the

13:51 receiver whilst they can output stereo still apart from the L m2's USBC receiver you will only see a single meter on screen compared to dual meters when wirelessly connecting the DJI mics A really lovely additional feature of using the DJI mics with the osmo cameras is you can set it to record the internal microphone St internal microphones as a backup W file which is great you know I got me connected right now talking on camera but when I want to get some b-roll I can actually use that audio and I have to turn off my microphone because I don't want to have me breathing over the b-roll do I so yeah lovely feature

14:36 I would love Insta 360 to rotate their USB C Port so it's vertical in future 360 cameras so all of these receivers can be flush and not get in shot the road Wireless Pro needs a USBC cable to connect to a USBC device the receivers on the DJI mics and saramonic Ultra let you attach a USB connector directly to them there's a lightning one included too apart from DJI Mike mini which is an additional extra I love how flushy dedicated USB receivers for the hollyland L M2 and Road Wireless micro are they take their power from the phone and are so tiny that you forget that they're there the others all stick out a bit if I'm using wireless mics in my phone then my favorite system is probably the road Wireless micros due to their small profile and the ability to record in Stereo or mono hollyland

15:23 really needs to address this oversight I love the size of the transmitters of the DJI Mike Mini the road wiress micro and the lm2 they are wearable microphones only as none of them have a 3.5 mm microphone input I hate seeing microphones in shot especially wearable ones and especially as they all have logos on making your walking advertisements at least you can hide the mini ones quite well especially if a subject is wearing a matching color the magnets are probably the best way placing the transmitter inside the clothes but not too covered up to avoid clothing causing any rubbing noises and don't worry about any M capsule not pointing upwards the polar pattern is 360° so it will pick up sound just fine the lm2 magnets have the logo on one side and annoyingly because their

16:09 transmitters have a magnet on the back due to the polarity it will only snap on with that side up using your own magnet is the best bet but maybe not one of these the design of the L M2 transmitters is my favorite other than the fluffy of course as they look the least like microphones they even come with stickers to cover over with the logo which is nice it's just a shame they don't have the same for the magnet and if you want to be bold there are some more um interesting stickers that you can put on but once they're on you won't be able to remove them you can of course cover them with another one like my slightly modified smiling Emoji here perfect if you want to be a comedian I also really like the necklaces that come with the L2 they're really good for quickly giving a microphone to someone you can still hide the larger transmitters with the built-in recording but it's more challenging as they are

16:56 not just bigger but much heavier than the tiny ones that's why I almost always use them with a plug-in lavalier microphone D Ro Wireless Pro is the only system that comes with two lav mics standard they're an extra expense with the DJI Mike 2 and saramonic Ultra the wireless Pro is the only receiver here with a locking lav mic connector this is a big plus as it's far too easy for a 3.5 mm plug to accidentally get pulled out especially if it's in a pocket but you can at least feed the cable under the clip on the mic too it's not just seeing the actual transmitter itself like my subtly placed white one here I've got others on me as well it's the flashing lights these are things you don't want to see when you're recording people

17:41 talking I haven't talked about range because they're all pretty similar it all depends on the environment you're actually in they're using 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi frequency which is very busy so if you're going to built up air you're going to get some interference and if you're in the middle of nowhere you're going to get the max range that they say you're going to get but the key thing is line of sight so I was filming myself from a distance and the transmitter was on my Bal then I'm blocking that signal and we get dropouts which is why 32 flight tot recording is so useful but yeah they're all pretty good just most time you're just going to keep the camera nice and close to you are you the ceram monic Ultra has an additional antenna on the receiver which should increase range but I wasn't a

18:28 able to test it so which one is best that's a difficult question to answer they will have their pluses and minuses just depends on which camera you are going to be recording your audio with if I'm using wireless mics with my phone then my favorite system is as I've said the road Wireless micro due to the tiny receiver and ability to record in Stereo or mono I really love the design of the hollyland L home 2 but the lack of stereo when using the mobile version is a big problem also the ability to use the DJI mic transmitters directly into their osmo cameras cannot be understated if you use those DJI also sell an adapter to directly connect the mic 2 receiver to the Mi shoe of Sony cameras so no cables are needed this is a huge Plus for me roads Wireless Pro is a lot

19:14 going for it and is what I would call the most professional of these systems because of time code the Locking lab connector and 32 GB of internal storage which equates to 40 hours of 32-bit float audio recordings the ceram monic Ultra and DJI mic 2 have just 8 gigs which is only around 10 hours so be careful as the oldest recordings will be written over when you go past that despite the size DJI Mike Mini's battery life is much longer than that of the Mike 2 the downside of them all though is they use non-replaceable batteries which are most likely to need replacing when you're outside of the warranty period road is either considering offering a replacement service or already has sadly dji's care refreshed their extended warranty isn't available for its microphones I do think the road Wireless pro has the best sounding buil in microphone and lab mic which isn't

20:01 surprising given their long history in this field but there are much better lab mics out there both from them and from other companies of course price is going to be an important factor in choosing which one to buy and there's a big difference in price from the cheapest to the most expensive within all of these is the perfect wireless wi-fi microphone system unfortunately the things that make them perfect are spread across all of them it's just not in one of them the next generation of these will be exciting to see and uh here