Review: Aspen Lav Mic (unbalanced)

Every time I sit down to record a YouTube video, I use a lav mic. This is a small microphone that clips to your clothing, near your mouth, that allows you to easily capture sound from the person it is attached to. It is much easier to use than an boom mic and you don’t need an operator (or stand) to implement it properly. It’s a perfect microphone for one-man-band YouTubing.

The microphone I’ve used ever since starting the Frugal Filmmaker has been the Radio Shack Tie-Clip mic, probably because it used to be so easy to get one (especially before RS closed half of their stores). It was an affordable $30 and produced decent sound for an unbalanced (non-XLR) microphone. It has been happy partners with my Zoom H1 Handy Recorder for some time now.

Aspen Mics recently contacted me and asked if I would review one of their lav mics and I agreed. Similarly priced, I was curious to hear the difference between this new mic and my old one, and looked forward to doing an A/B comparison.

The above video is a finding of my results. The Aspen is a well-made mic that sounds identical to my Radio Shack model, but needs no batteries. It’s a good looking mic, with a great cord length for mounting to a concealed recorder. It’s about $12 more expensive than the RS version, but that may be negligible when the price of batteries are added in.