Sony ECM-CS3 and StarTech Headset Adapter Review

I was really surprised about the great audio quality I was able to achieve with this combo here. I plugged the CS3 into my iPhone with the StarTech adapter and was able to get some solid audio quality out of it that greatly surpasses what my Sony a6000's mic could do. It took a little while of just messing around with it to find the right place to put it and the right settings to use for volume/gain in the app I was using to record (Voice Record Pro). From my tests it worked best with the mic about as high up on my shirt as I could get it with the volume set to 0. This kept the noise floor considerably down and I was able to boost the volume up as needed while still having minimal noise.

The raw audio was pretty clean sounding and then I added a denoiser and dynamics in Premiere Pro to really take it to the next level. You can see the effects of that in the video above. The CS3 is a stereo mic, but with the StarTech adapter it pretty much records in mono though for some reason the right channel was still picking up sound. Thankfully though the sound it did pick up was lowered considerably which helped with any noise you would normally get if you were moving around.

The CS3's mic cable is a little bit on the short side though I definitely would like if it were even half a foot longer. During my tests the cable was usable but it kind of felt just "long enough" I'd much rather have the feeling of a little bit too much than almost not enough. Of course you can get an extension cable and that'd be no problem but just something to consider. In conclusion though I am really satisfied with what this mic and the adapter can do for the price and I'd definitely buy it again.