{"id":7738,"date":"2010-02-19T05:53:42","date_gmt":"2010-02-19T05:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philipbloom.co.uk\/?p=7738"},"modified":"2010-08-07T19:16:25","modified_gmt":"2010-08-07T17:16:25","slug":"beachtek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philipbloom.net\/blog\/beachtek\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of new “Beachtek DXA-SLR” XLR adaptor for HD-DSLR cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Sound has always been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for HD-DSLRs for me. Documentary filming is one of my biggest passions and until now I have always had to try and cope with dual system sound or a mic like the Rode Video Mic plugged into the mic input of the camera and left on auto.<\/p>\n

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XLR adaptors for cameras are nothing new. Beachtek and other companies have been doing them for donkey’s years. But the HD-DSLRs that I use. The Canon 7D, 1DmkiV and 7D have big problems with sound. The input being a puny 3.5mm jack is of course fixed by these XLR adaptors but that is only part of the issue. The main problems are auto gain control, otherwise known as AGC. The lack of a headphone jack (!), no onscreen meters. It just plain sucks!!<\/p>\n

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Now the previous Beachtek adaptor that I played with really wasn’t good enough for me. It’s passive so had no amplification making using certain microphones a real no-no. The AGC of the camera would try and bump up the levels if the signal was too low causing nasty hiss all over the sound. Also the HD-DSLRs with their current firmware have no audio meters. The SLR has no proper meters on it. But it does have lights that flicker green for good levels and red for bad. Not exactly ideal but better than nothing. \u00a0The new 5Da<\/a> does have proper meters but is’s passive device.<\/p>\n

I have just received a pre-production DXA-SLR XLR adaptors from Beachtek. I have been bugging them for ages to try and review one of their units and finally have got one! The SLR is an active adaptor and has pre-amps in it making it usable for just about all mics out there. It also has +48v phantom power so can power your mics that need it. There are also gain switches underneath the unit. There is a +15db switch for either of the two channels.<\/p>\n

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Other plusses. It’s smaller and more sturdy. Made of die cast aluminium. \u00a0The old one also covered the battery compartment. A right pain. This one doesn’t!<\/p>\n

A very key and incredibly neat feature is the ability to “disable” auto gain control on the camera. It does this in a very clever way. This is from the manual…”This switch is a means to disable the wild swings of the Auto Gain\u00a0Control in the camera. It activates an inaudible tone of 20 kHz\u00a0to the left channel (when set to STEREO operation) that prevents\u00a0the Auto Gain Control from increasing the gain to its maximum\u00a0level. This reduces the hiss that normally occurs when the camera\u00a0is recording audio during quiet moments. This inaudible tone is\u00a0recorded by the camera but can be easily filtered out if necessary.”…and you know what…it actually bloody works…remarkably well!! This is a big deal, until we get official firmware that disables this that bloody AGC for us, \u00a0this feature it a bit of major step forward for HD-DSLR sound, not quite a game changer but damn close! Of course magic lantern firmware <\/a>does this too, but this is much simpler and easier and just a flick of a switch. Although magic lantern<\/a> offers way more additional features than this.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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