Audio-Technica ATR25 Stereo Condenser Microphone | 
 enlarge | Brand: Audio-Technica
Category: CE
Buy New: $31.07
New (25) from $31.07
Rating:  40 reviews
Color: black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 11 x 3 x 6
Legal Disclaimer: Warranty does not cover misuse of product.
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: ATR-25
Model: ATR-25
UPC: 042005302505
EAN: 0042005302505
ASIN: B00006J04Y
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Ideal for use with video cameras | | • | Offers the convenience of high-quality stereo pickup in a single microphone | | • | Professional condenser circuitry ensures excellent sound quality | | • | On/off switch for convenient operation | | • | Includes short camera cable with stereo mini-plug, and long recording cable with dual mono mini-plugs and 1/4 adapters |
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Product Description
Audio-Technica offers its ATR25 stereo condenser video/recording microphone. It is ideal for use with video cameras and offers the convenience of high-quality stereo pickup in a single microphone. Its professional condenser circuitry ensures excellent sound quality and it has an on/off switch for convenient operation. It also includes short camera cable with stereo mini-plug, and a long recording cable with dual mono mini-plugs and 1/4" adapters. Camera-mount and interchangeable microphone stand adapter base are also included.
Amazon.com Product Description
Ideal for use with video cameras, Audio-Technica's affordable ATR25 offers the convenience of a high-quality stereo pickup in a single, easy to position microphone. The mic's professional condenser circuitry ensures excellent sound quality, while its on/off switch gives you a convenient method for conserving batteries. (The mic's internal preamplifier uses a single AA battery, included). Each of the mic's two recording capsules offers a unidirectional polar pattern, rejecting off-axis sound for clean, focused pickups. The ATR25 comes with two cables: a short camera cable with a stereo minijack .125-inch plug and a long recording cable with dual mono minijack plugs and .25-inch adapters for use with recording or public-address equipment. A camera-mount and an interchangeable microphone-stand adapter base are also supplied. What's in the Box
Microphone, 1 AA battery, 1 short camera cable with stereo mini-plug, 1 long recording cable with dual mono mini-plugs, two .25-inch adapters, 1 camera mount, 1 interchangeable microphone stand adapter base, a user's manual, and warranty information
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 Bought a new one, received a used one January 8, 2009
I haven't even tried the mic out yet. Package was obviously opened. Internal packaging damaged and evidence item was removed from package. Also appears to be missing paperwork. I've been a loyal amazon customer, but this may be my last order. Crooks.
 1 Year Later... January 1, 2009
The good stuff...
I've had this mic (and the ATR35 Lavalier mic) for well over a year and I've used them with 5 different camcorders(four miniDV and one hard drive based). I cannot put into words how much better the ATR25 sounds over the built-in mic on any of the DV cams. It maintains it's focus on where/who it's being pointed at while picking up just the right amount of ambient noise to keep the video sounding natural. It also completely eliminated the hiss and whine that every DV cam suffers from the motors turning the cassette.
With that said, since I've upgraded to a JVC GZHD6 I no longer use this mic. The built-in DD 5.1 mic doesn't exactly out-perform the ATR25 on all levels but the difference is negligible (something I completely expect from a camera in it's price range).
The bad stuff...
No LED power light! This is a gross oversight in the design of this microphone. At a glance, it's hard to tell if you've accidentally left it on or maybe bumped it on in your camera bag. Use rechargeable batteries and always have extras. The worse part is when you need to use it again you don't know if the battery is good or not (because there is no LED indicating as much). I once filmed 45 min of documentary interviews before I noticed that the battery had been dead all along. Lesson learned, I now use a fresh battery every time I use the mic, and remove the battery before I put it away. I cannot stress how annoying this is.
Another annoyance is the mounting/cable setup of the mic. If you do not have a shoe to mount the mic to you're going to need to improvise. A couple of the cameras I used had a mic input jack but no shoe. "No problem", I thought, "I'll just hold it, or set it in the middle of the table or something".. oh no, no, no. The standard mini jack plug that goes from the mic to the camcorder is about 8 inches long. There is another longer cable that comes with the mic but it splits the stereo signal to 2 mini jack plugs, one for left and one for right. While I'm sure this is handy if your using a sound board of some sort like a recording studio, I'm having trouble seeing a need for this cable in the consumer market. A longer standard mic/headphone extension would have been better. I bought this to solve the problem: Maxell HP20 Headphone Extension Cord with Adapters-10 bucks.
Overall, I am extremely happy with this product. If you have a mic input jack on your camcorder and you care about audio quality at all, buy it. Just don't forget the rechargeable batteries.
 Noisy November 16, 2008
I found that the audio quality of this microphone was not much better than the built in microphones on my camera, while producing noticeably more noise.
I returned this product and purchased a High-performance(SMX-10) Stereo Condenser Microphone which is a little more expensive but I couldn't be happier with the difference in performance.
 Good if only for the fact that it's external October 30, 2008
I was looking for a cheap external mic for my camcorder and decided to try this one out. When I plugged it into my camera I wasn't amazed by the difference in sound quality from the internal mic, but I did notice an improvement. Maybe it's my mistake not springing for a more expensive shotgun mic, which this isn't, but it's still very handy to have if only for the fact that you can place it away from the camera to experiment with different sound angles. It's very versatile. Has a standard stereo mini-plug connector that'll work with pretty much any consumer cam that has an external mic jack. The cool thing though is that cable can be disconnected and replaced with a splitter cable that's included. This takes the stereo and converts it into two separate mono outputs and is designed more for if you plan to record onto a portable digital sound mixer, a little more complicated to sync, but a great option to have. I also liked that the bottom of the shoe mount can be screwed onto a spare tripod if you have one or even a monopod if you wanted to make a poor man's boom mic. All of these give you a great number of options for how to record your sound and I suggest you experiment with some of them. The mic's sound is nothing to gush over, but it is an improvement, and it does seem a bit cheap on the part of the manufacturer that we have to share the mic clamp with the shoe mount and the boom mic attachment, but if you can afford a boom mic pole you can afford a spare mic clamp for it. If you can't afford a boom mic pole, you probably won't have to worry about it since, as stated before, you can really just screw the shoe mount onto a cheap monopod or spare tripod and that works great. (Should also be noted, the standard mini plug connector is rather short, you should also pick up a mini plug extension cable if you want to record off a monopod or tripod straight into the camera.)
ATR25 disappointed September 16, 2008
I have to be honest I went for the price and was disappointed. I was looking for a stereo microphone that would improve the sound recorded by my camcorder. I made some test recordings using the ART attached to 2 different hot-shoe type mounting brackets. The first extended the microphone off to the left side and the other lifted it above the camera. I downloaded the footage on to my computer and opened it with Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. All three test attempts contained camcorder motor noise at about the same intensity in all attempts. The microphone has lots of features and accessories but did not work for me. I returned it to Amazon and opted to purchase the more expensive SMX -10 Azden and it worked just fine with no motor sound and it eliminated the background sound that the on-board microphone picked up.
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