I was looking for an upgrade to the kit ME-2 that came with my G3, and fine folks at Toronto TREW audio were kind enough to spend a few hours with me testing the most common lavs on the market -- tram tr50, sanken cos11, and the two latest offerings from RODE. I know these tests are all over the internet, but I always had a problem with them because the cos11 and sometimes the tram were usually run through lectronics while the me-2 and RODEs were often run through G3s. Needless to say, if you are a dslr shooting, you're probably not going to shell out 2-4k for a lectrosonics transmitter and receiver. Luckily, the trew techs were kind enough to modify the tram and sanken for g3 receivers.

I thought I'd share the results as a good lavalier is essential for any solo dslr shooter and produces much better quality than an onboard shotgun and it's really hard to tell what's better from youtube tests given their crappy compressed audio.

First, a general note -- the RODEs, tram and saken all completely spanked the me-2, which should not be a surprise, though it was surprising just how much better they sounded. The ME-2 was just soo thin sounding. So, knowing I was going to walk out of there with a new lav of some sort, I started comparing them, side by side, in different sound environments for the next two hours (all tests were done with a sound devices mixer and sony studio headphones). Here are the results:

BEST SOUND QUALITY

Sanken COS11 -- no suprise, it's the most expensive as well. There's a reason it is used by high end documentaries and most television and film. But is it good for a solo DSLR shooter? If time and money are no issue, then yes, but if they are, here are a few drawbacks:

• Higher Handling Noise. It takes careful mounting to conceal this lav and tape down the wire since both the microphone and the wire are very sensitive to handling noise. If you got the time, or you are mainly doing sit-down interviews, you'll be rewarded, but if you need a lav (as I mainly do) for filming moving subjects solo, it may not be the best choice.

• Costly aftermarket adaptors. Okay, not that costly, but you're looking at $30 - $50 to modify it for use with a g3, and another $140 if you want to then plug that into an xlr for sit-down interviews.

INTERESTING, BUT NOT PERFECT

RODE Pin Mic -- recently released from RODE this mic is meant to be hidden in plain sight (the capsule pins through clothing. I could see this being very useful for event shooters and live broadcast, particularly if you didn't want to spend a lot of time mounting it. But the sound quality, while better than the me-2, felt a little lacking at the low end, and the fact that the mic faces out (even though it's an omni) did seem to mean a little more of the room was picked up. If you do a lot of weddings and other events though, you might want to consider it. About $250.

AN OLD STANDBY

Which led to the TRAM TR50, the flat, small lav that many of you will recognize from your sound recordists bag if you haven't already used (or owned) yourself. Easy to conceal and sounded much better than the pin mic. Far less handing noise than the COS11, and cheaper too ($250) although requires the same modifications and adaptors to use with G3 as the COS11. The downside was it came in pretty quiet -- even at 0b from the transmitter you still had to crank up the mixer more than 3/4 of the way to get have the audio peak in the the 0 - +6 db range and that added a small but noticeable bit of noise. So you could record it lower and let post deal with it if you need to crank it later, but that's a little complicated. Which led to:

THE EVENTUAL WINNER

(For me at least) The RODE lavalier. Also $250. Rich, full sound -- not quite as good as the COS11, but about the same size (which is to say quite small) and far more impervious to handling noise -- put it on my undershirt and moved around a bit and even without moleskin had no noise off the overshirt (which was soft cotton, granted, but still, not bad for a very quick and dirty mounting job). Best of all, only required a $30 G3 adaptor and a $50 XLR adaptor, so ended up saving me $150 over the tram and nearly $300 over the COS11. And bizarrely for a lav at least, comes with a five year warranty.

So there you have it. As always, I'd encourage you to try to test out these options in person and pick the combination that is right for how you use it most (and realize that ultimately, many people have at least two different kinds of lavs in their bag because there is no perfect choice). But if you, like me, were frustrated by the lack of controls (eg different receivers) and compression found on most internet tests, hopefully this feedback helps in narrowing down your decision. Sorry, no audio to post -- I really should have recorded it all -- but I will post a me-2 v. RODE comparison when I get a moment to pull it off.