Cheapest way to binaural recording - Livescribe Pulse, below $50

Vitaliy_Kiselev

All you need is look around for Livescribe Plus on ebay, like this $39 listing http://www.ebay.com/itm/Livescribe-2GB-Pulse-SmartPen-For-Part-or-Repair-Bad-LCD-/262406430957 or http://www.ebay.com/itm/Livescribe-Pulse-Smartpen-Propack-4GB-EUC-/201692287029

Thing come with special in ear binaural stereo mikes (and also headphones, so you can check result).

Note that this model has flaw that OLED screen dies painfully (especially if you left it uncharged). If you bought it new, you can exchange it to new Echo, btw, by contacting manufacturer.

Works good without screen, as all you need is small piece of paper from Livescribe notebook with proper icons.

If you want to record some lecture or such it will make very usable recording as your brain will be able to do all work cleaning speech from background.

MaxDepth

Wow! Perfect idea for my goals.

Ezzelin

Sound Professionals also sells a lot of good binaural microphones for not much more, such as this:

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-EBM-1

Vitaliy_Kiselev

@Ezzelin

Yep. On Amazon you can also find binaural DIY like mikes.

But it is still only mikes (even if headphones cases). No recorder, need to remove to check recording result, etc.

For recording some music or ambience it can be preferable, but for voice I find my solution far superior.

Ezzelin

Personally, I got these:

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-TFB-2

I plug then directly into my G7, and get great sound. They also work well with my Zoom H2n. The pen does like a cool piece of tech, though.

MikeLinn

Not so cheap

Vitaliy_Kiselev

More about Ambeo

Features:

Headphones with Lightning connection for iPhone and iPad (MFi certified by Apple)
Built-in professional microphones for 3D audio recording to capture sounds like you hear them
Effortless recording with any App that captures stereo audio, including iPhone Camera App
Transparent Hearing lets you hear the sounds around you and blend them with audio from your iPhone
Active Noise Cancellation blocks distractions in your surroundings
Additional telephone mic lets you take calls and operate voice control on iPhone
High-quality headphones with signature Sennheiser sound
Apogee’s proprietary Soft Limit and mic preamp plus precisely tuned A/D and D/A conversion

http://www.apogeedigital.com/shop/ambeo-smart-headset

Vitaliy_Kiselev

On Photokina

markr041

The above mic can only do fake binaural - electronically synthesized. Binaural works by simulating how we hear - so it needs ear architecture around each mic and a head in between the two mics. The simplest solution is to plug an omnidirectional mic in each ear and record in stereo. Works well. Easy to record and requires no special treatments in post.

The discontinued Sennheiser AMBEO mic/headphones was the right idea, but terribly executed - no reason for the "sports" rig, and absolutely no reason to use a lightning connector. It was not Smart, it was Dumb. No reason to combine with electronic noise reduction, except that NR headphones of course use mics!

Simple plug-in power omni electrets in each ear are fine - Sound Professionals and Roland have cheap offerings that work really well.

And having multiple mics surrounding musicians is the worst way to get surround sound - totally unnatural sounding and gimmicky. We hear with just two ears, and are able to decipher locations all around us. That is the secret of binaural.

Oh, binaural audio works really well for videos that capture a place:

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