At first I was nervous about the price but now I see that itâ€s worth the price.

I have been using this microphone for the past two and a half months, recording indoor interviews. I record into a Tascam DR-100, which provides the phantom power (and other features) not available on my Canon 60D. This microphone's frequency response is fabulous, capturing the full vocal range. As a hypercardioid, the AT4053b is a significant improvement on the on the Sennheiser ME66, the microphone I was using for interviews before, which yields a very thin sound when used indoors. I boom the microphone, getting it as close as possible to the subject's mouth. As a result , the AT4053b's flat frequency response, you need to use an EQ, attenuating a few decibels between 100 to 200 dB. I wouldn't consider the flat frequency a drawback, as it is very useful in certain contexts (e.g., capturing someone with a deep voice). But it something you need to be aware of, especially when recording a few inches from a person's mouth.

Really nice mic for indoor use. I haven't use it much yet but did some testing and it sounds great. Very well made. Looking forward to recording more with it.

Very nice for indoor use. Does the job perfect by keeping the reverb down and echo. I would definitely buy another if I had to.

I bought the new Tascam DR-60DmkII 4-Channel Portable Recorder as a secondary device to record audio and tried my existing mic's with this unit. The problem was that both my other 2 mics did not pick up well without a lot of ambient noise too and definitely didn't do well in a echoey type room setting. Now I do have a couple of wireless mic's also but sometimes those don't fit the bill. I needed a mic, on a boom pole & stand that picked up good interviews that didn't have that echoey tone to it and also picked up the voice loud * clear enough so when I imported it into FCPX I had an audio track I could deal with and edit. After watching some video's of this mic and hearing some online samples, I thought I'd try this even though it was very pricey for mainly one purpose. Once it arrived I was really anxious to test it and after about an hour of testing, adjusting levels, bringing samples into FCPS & so on, I was very pleased. This is one thing I won't have to worry about anymore. So with the the Tascam recorder & this mic, and the extra wind screen, I got about what....$$into this solution. But audio is so important I felt relieved I had solved the problem. I also bought the Windtech 1200 Series - 3/4 Inside Diameter - Black Windscreen (B&H # WI1200B) to put on this mic because it's a little bulkier and helps block echo sound. The wind screen that comes with the mic is a little small & thinner.One more thing about this. I have the new Sony a7s, I will be hooking this camera up to the new Atomos Shogun monitor/recorder and using this mic with that unit, plugged right into the Shogun's XLR inputs for close personal interview type work.

I was completely impressed by the dynamic range and intelligibility of this microphone. It is not just good but it blows away other microphones in this category. I did a blind test comparison video where you can judge for yourself in a controlled environment and known trouble spot. You can check out the video from my Vimeo Channel https://vimeo.com/118881135

Great sounding mic. Very sensitive as well as natural sounding. Compliments my CS-3e well for indoor scenes. I will buy another if I ever need stereo.

I really love this microphone. It's light and the quality of sound is great.

This mic is widely recommended for interior use, and with good reason. I was using a shotgun mic, and having lots of problems with echo, distracting, poor quality sound. This is a great improvement. I love it!

This is not scientific but might be useful to others: we just got this today to take the place of a Samson C02 (our budget is tight!). Our camera is a Sony HXR-NX80, and right now we are recording straight into it. So, I plugged both mics in so I could compare the result at the computer.


I did not expect significant noise difference because our experience is that the HXR-NX80 is quite noisy in the audio department. Nevertheless, the AT4053b actually yielded a difference we could see easily on the meters in the software (Premiere Pro). Not epic, but clearly there. How much of the difference is self noise and how much the result of the AT4053b doing better at ignoring some of the environment is hard for us to say as we are not expert; we do not have a wonderful room to record in (you can hear the hum of the traffic). But in either case that result is the main reason I asked for us to make the purchase.


As for quality of sound: I myself would rather be recorded with the AT4053b because I found the result a little thicker you might say. The Samson sounds a bit thin or reedy by comparison. However, the quality difference was more subtle than the noise difference.


I just wanted to share a result with anyone else who is struggling with whether to make the leap from inexpensive but reputable mics to something pricier. I think we made the right decision, but I am hoping we can get the Sound Devices MixPre 3 to really make it pay off. My goals are (a) to cut down on time and discussion in post-processing and (b) to have people sound their best within our budget constraints.