NEW RODE NTG-3 shotgun.
 

There's a new generation RODE NTG-3 shotgun coming. 48V, no battery, no low cut or on/off switch to get in the signal path. With very low self noise figures my guess is it it'll be really nice and transparent.

2cm shorter than an NTG-2 with an aluminum tube/case for protection, nice move that.

Cheers.

You sound like a salesman Al !

A Rode fan
 

Rode gives good "bang for the buck" and I will be anxious to see what they come up with next. Thanks for the heads up.

That's interesting- 2cm shorter but without battery? So the pre-capsule part of the tube is a little longer than the NTG-2, yes? Also, I'd be surprised if, when not in use, the low-cut filter existed in the circuit, but I might be wrong, of course.

Jeez that bad huh :)

Well, if I Google "rode ntg-3" all the hits seem to be from you :-)

But thanks for the info, I like the Rodes. They are a good level of quality and price for most of us.

Hi Col, it's not that often anyone gets the chance to be so proud of the home team, but we all are here.

The NTG-3 is a step up again, how big a step, we're about to find out :)
Cheers.

I love my NTG2 so much, I tought it could never be surpassed!

Robert,

A Schoeps CMIT will easily surpass an NTG-1 or NTG-2.

Regards,

Ty Ford

I'm pretty happy with my NTG-2, but then it is just slightly cheaper than the Schoeps. One would imagine the extra $2000 would mean a slight step up in quality!

The CMIT lists for $1999.00 in USD so it's not really $2000 more.

Regards,

Ty Ford

To evaluate quality, I recommend this equation:

QUALITY_TO_YOU = PRODUCT_QUALITY * (YOUR_OVERALL_AUDIO_BUDGET - PRODUCT_COST)

In other words, if a product is costs more than your overall audio budget, it has negative value - to you. And the better that unaffordable product is, the more it hurts not to have it, so it harms the quality of your life even more than an expensive crappy product. ;)

On the other hand, if you can afford a top-quality product and still have money left for other goodies, well, life is good!

I'd also say that product quality has an S-shaped curve. An excellent product is usually only marginally better than a great product, and a moderately crappy product is still crap. The steep part of the curve is between "not bad" and "great."

All this boils down to just two rules:
1) Get the greatest products that you can comfortably afford and
2) Never buy crap!

But I think there is, with everything, a point of diminishing return.

Is a $20 bottle of wine better than a $4 bottle? To my tastes, yes. Is a $400 bottle better than a $20? Probably not for my level of decernment.

I used to do competitive target shooting. I had a very nice rifle that cost about $900. Most of the top shooters were shooting guns that were in the $5000 range. I could borrow their guns, but my score would stay the same --I was the limiting factor, not my gun.

Summary - At the bottom of any price range is something that is probably unacceptable for anyones use. As you keep going up the scale, you will find a perfectly adequate piece of equipment for what you are doing and at that point your skill is more important than the equipment. A top of the line mic does nothing to save a production that is poorly boomed, poorly mixed, poorly captured, poorly lit, poorly exposed etc. As your skill increases, and all other production values increase with it, top end gear may make a difference.

I have had this discussion a hundred times. Here's the deal. If you can hear the difference but decide not to give yourself the chance, you have just shot yourself in the foot. End of story.

Yes, you can render the experiment quite bogus by misusing the CMIT. For example, expecting it to perform well in an overly reverberant space. Similarly, don't expect it to sound good if you stick it on a camera. This is a boom mic, not a magic wand. It wants to be used properly.

Seasoned pros can hear the difference, so it is obviously there. We're not talking subjective "taste" here. We're talking what a piece of gear can do. If you decide not to pursue a piece of gear that you'll buy once and use for the next 20 years, fine. Just make sure you own that decision.

One obvious alternative would be to rent one for a few days. If you can't hear that it make a very big difference, then you really DO need to hire a sound person. If you DO hear the difference, you know what to do.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Here is a simple, straight forward review of the virtues of the SCHOEPS CMIT 5U:
http://www.dv.com/reviews/reviews_it...leId=189400355