Four-midable Sennheiser!
Posted on Jan 14, 2024 by Samara Husbands
The MKE 600 shotgun microphone has been awarded the Pro Moviemaker Gear of the Year award for XLR mics for an unprecedented fourth time
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If you want to make a sound investment in your filmmaking, spending £235 on the Sennheiser MKE 600 XLR mic could be the best thing you ever do. From its compact, yet rugged all-metal housing to its supreme sound quality, it will give many years of pro use and elevate the soundtrack of your films.
That’s the view of thousands of readers of Pro Moviemaker magazine, who voted the super Sennheiser as the winner of the best XLR mic in the prestigious Gear of the Year Awards. Incredibly, it’s for a record fourth time. The Sennheiser MKE 600 is simply the XLR mic most professionals want.
One thing remains constant, though – and that’s the need for a top-quality yet affordable mic.
Whether you use a cinema camera, mirrorless with XLR adapter or a separate recording device, the Sennheiser MKE 600 continues to deliver. That’s testament to its lasting quality and performance.
The unit has been tried and tested for many years by audio professionals, and this highly directional shotgun mic once again proves that sound output and incredible build quality confirm its status as a legendary product.
It’s the professional XLR mic most independent filmmakers want to own, knowing as they do that audio is crucial to every movie.
It is highly praised for recording vocals, such as interviews or conversation, which is imperative to get right every time. The MKE 600 has super speech reproduction and high intelligibility, thanks to its audio quality across its entire 40Hz to 20kHz frequency range.
Due to its advanced design and length, which isolates sound and rejects unwanted noise from both the sides and rear, this is a highly directional mic. A switchable, low-cut filter reduces handling and wind noise even further, as well as background hum. It’s easy to operate with plug-and-play simplicity, a huge bonus for filmmakers.
To combat wind noise, a foam windshield is included as standard, offering reduction of around 25dB. For very blustery conditions, Sennheiser’s MZH 600 blimp-style windshield is available as an optional extra and offers even greater isolation.
The MKE 600 accepts phantom power from camcorders and cinema cameras, but can also be powered by a standard AA battery, so you shouldn’t have any power issues on location. A single AA offers approximately 150 hours of use.
Plus, the microphone includes an on-off switch to ensure the battery isn’t drained when the mic is not being used – a vital feature.
When the low battery LED lights up, there’s roughly eight hours of recording time left. And one of the advantages of using battery power? It’s easy to use on a lightweight boom.
Sennheiser also provides the KA 600 coiled cable as an optional extra, which plugs into the mic’s XLR connector but has a standard 3.5mm jack plug at the other end.
That makes it ideal for smaller cameras like mirrorless or DSLRs, or even compact cinema cameras. There’s even a cable to connect it to a smartphone or tablet.
With its incredible versatility, compact size, power options and legendary audio quality, it should be no surprise that the Sennheiser MKE 600 is a winner in our awards once more. Simply point the mic at your subject and let the advanced technology do the rest.
Originally published in the Jan/Feb 2024 issue of Pro Moviemaker.
