Sennheiser MKE 400 Review | Take Your Audio To The Next Level

hey my name is Andrew and this is the Sennheiser MKE 400 in this review I want to cover everything that you need to know about this microphone from what comes in the Box to how it works to the pros and cons so let's just jump into it starting with what comes in the Box first you have the instruction manuals it comes with a dead cap which is a filter that slides on top of the microphone to help reduce wind noises comes with a cable to plug the microphone into a smartphone and a cable to plug the microphone into a camera and you also get a travel bag to put all these items in which is kind of Handy if you'd want to put everything in one place but the one thing we are all here for the actual microphone itself all right so now let's do an overview of this microphone starting with the price now this microphone is coming in about 200 which you know if you're budget minded 200 is a lot of money there are cheaper microphones out there but I think spending the extra money and buying a really good microphone is a good investment because you know down the road if you buy a new camera or new lenses this microphone will still be getting you really great audio so I think it's worth the money now let's jump into the features first of all this microphone is battery powered now on the back of it where it says Sennheiser MKE 400 there's a little tab if you slide that down it opens up revealing the battery compartment now this thing takes two AAA batteries and I think that's kind of handy because you know they're cheap and they're easy to have in your camera bag you know if you're out shooting and your battery runs low you can replace them now this thing has 100 hours of battery life which is a very long time so when this thing is running low it actually turns the power button red which allows you to know that you have have three hours left and that is plenty of time to finish what you're recording swap out the batteries and keep going when you have this thing mounted on top of your camera plugged in and you turn your camera on it also turns the microphone on so that's really nice to know that you know you're not going to forget to turn on the microphone to record audio and also when you turn your camera back off it will also turn the microphone off so that way you don't forget to turn it off and waste all that battery life if you're worried about forgetting to turn it on or your battery running out those features eliminate all those fears now there is a power button on the side like I said it turns green whenever it's on so that's a visual reminder that the you know microphone is turned on there's also a switch for a low cut filter which helps to reduce noise in the room on the same side there's a little minus and a plus sign that is a sensitivity switch so you have three settings one is if you're going to be mounting it really close to a subject and you don't want it to be you know too much noise coming into the microphone you can turn it to the minus and equally if if you have a subject that's really far away you can put it on the plus side to help pick up more sound now on the other side there is a headphone jack and what that allows is you can plug in some headphones and you can monitor the audio coming out of this microphone in real time now there's a volume switch right next to the headset and that allows you to adjust the volume in your headset I think that's a really nice feature if you own a camera that doesn't have an audio headphone jack I use this microphone recently to do some interviews so I was able to just plug the headphones in and listen to the audio before I record it to make sure that I was close enough to the subject to get that good audio and so that was a really useful feature and I think having that with you know a camera that you don't have a headphone jack is a real game changer and finally on the front you have the mic out which is where you plug in the cord obviously the Sennheiser microphones come with a nice thread system so whenever you plug it in you can thread it in and that keeps it from accidentally popping out which is another nice feature and so as far as how this thing works you turn your camera on you press record and it starts recording audio and speaking of audio you probably want to know what this thing sounds like and a general rule of thumb is if you're going to be testing audio it's best to be using some form of headphones so you can throw those on now but yeah let's do some audio tests first in a studio setting like right now now what you're currently listening to as a kind of neutral Middle Ground is a much cheaper version of this microphone is the Sennheiser MKE 200 this is what it sounds like in a studio setting on my Canon M50 without any microphone and you know I've done tests before it sounds really really bad so let's plug in the MKE 400. all right and now this is what it sounds like on the Sennheiser MKE 400 you were just listening to the Sennheiser MKE 200 which a little you know side review this is also a great option so if you want to you can check that on this channel it's a lot cheaper now for a quick comparison let's jump back to what it sounds like without any microphone alright again here is what it sounds like without any microphone not very good so for the other test I know some people are going to be using this for like vlogging so now let's head outside all right we're outside now this is a vlogging setting where you'd be using the Sennheiser MKE 400 I am using the dead cat which is on top of the microphone and I don't know if you can hear there's a little bit of wind that just picked up there's also a car ripping down the road so that's kind of a little background noise but you know this is what it sounds like here with the Sennheiser MKE 400. all right quick comparison now we just cut to the in-body microphone in comparison a lot of other cameras are probably going to have similar audio quality to this but as you can tell there's probably a lot of wind noises and it's really not that windy but I've done audio tests before and it just takes a little bit of wind and the audio is just kind of ruined with an in-body microphone all right now for comparison's sake this is what it sounds like according to the Sennheiser MKE 200 which is a more Compact and cheaper microphone than the Sennheiser MKE 400 but you can be the judge if you think it's a hundred dollar difference all right and finally we jump back to the MKE 400 that's the test here in the vlogging let's head back to the studio so those were the audio tests now let's jump into the pros and the cons so starting with the pros as you could tell from those samples the audio quality coming out of this microphone is really really good another Pro is that you can monitor the audio live and I think that's a really nice feature another Pro is that I really appreciate that the kit comes with a core that you can plug into your smartphone and that allows you to record really good audio to your phone and I know a lot of people nowadays are using their phones more than ever to record videos so being able to record really good audio straight to your phone is a really nice feature and my final Pro is probably my favorite thing about this microphone and that is the design the design of this microphone is super compact it doesn't have a big bulky shock mount that gets in the way and in fact you know I used to have a microphone that had a shock mount that you know your typical microphone has and it actually broke when I was traveling so this microphone doesn't have any parts that are you know hanging out that could break off so the durable design and also you know I think it just looks really nice I think ultimately you know the design the function of this microphone the audio quality are all really great Pros now on to the cons I only really have two the batteries I wish it wasn't battery powered I I prefer a microphone that doesn't need to have batteries replaced but as I stated before they're AAA batteries so they're not uncommon to get you can have some spare ones laying around and you know they're not going to break the bank I wouldn't really consider serious con but it is kind of annoying to have to change batteries and my other con is that the dead cat is a little bit tricky to install if you're not used to it but those are my only two cons I think my biggest takeaway is that this microphone has a lot of great Pro features and it sounds really good and I think a lot of times people aren't really worried about the audio sound in their videos and I think it's kind of underrated so I think being able to invest in a microphone that's going to last you a really long time that's durable and that sounds really good ultimately is a great investment so if you are interested in this microphone I will leave a link in the description and if you have any comments or questions at all leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you and if you enjoyed this video I'd appreciate it if you'd leave a like if you want to see more product reviews like this consider subscribing and if you do I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Andrew Knepper

Views: 6,166

Keywords: Sennheiser, Sennheiser MKE 400, Sennheiser MKE 200, Sennheiser Mic, Pro microphone, review, product review, gear review, YouTube review, must have, trending, Canon M50, Canon M6 Mark II

Id: C27uzTlWzHI

Length: 8min 12sec (492 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 18 2023