I'm looking to get a shotgun mic to replace the one that came with my PD150. I've seen a used Beyerdynamic MCE86 at a very good price but can find no reviews etc of this model. Does anybody have any experience with this mic? How does it compare with the Sennheiser K6/ME66?

Any info would br greatly appreciated.

Gareth, a quick look at the comparitive graphs seems to indicate that they are reasonably close. The MCE86 looks to have a little less colouration of the sound on the off axis, if I read their polar pattern correctly. There stated frequency responses are slightly different (80-18000) for MCE86 and (50-20000) for ME66 but I'm not sure that would bother you if you're using it for dialog situations.

You might need to make sure you're getting the right model as there is one which is phantom and battery and one which is just phantom.

Aaron

Gareth:

Ive got a mce87 which is the battery op model of the 86 I beleive, I got it so my xl1 could use it not phantom available on that, the 86 should be fine because the 150 does phantom Im pretty sure, (which is sad considering I should know that but not positive).

I used my 87 on the pd150 as well, its a step up from the stock mic and has done a good job for me...

M

Mic selection is a pretty subjective process. It's what it sounds like to your ears and not what it looks like on paper. If you could somehow compare the various mics first hand.

What I did was tape clips of various mics on my camera. I always spoke the same script, so when the mics were not at the same location I had a known comparison. The gain was set the same on all test clips.

The other option is to buy from a retailer that will allow you to return or exchange the mics.