DJI Mic 2 Review: the good, the bad and the ugly
As the wireless microphone offerings expand, so does my need to review them. Traditionally, the wireless microphone space was a bit lack lustre. They had clunky receivers that you had to try to hide under your clothes, the connections would drop out and the ability to connect seamlessly to a smartphone was rare.
Today, that is no longer the case.
We’ve got Rode, DJI, Hollyland and Sennheiser as well as many others all putting their hats into the ring and today I’m putting the DJI Mic 2 to the test.
As a podcast producer with over 60 clients globally, I'm always on the hunt for audio and video equipment that can simplify our client workflow while delivering top-notch quality. If you're in the same boat, or perhaps just curious about whether this kit holds its ground against competitors like the Rode Wireless Pro, keep reading.
I've spent the last month and a half putting the DJI Mic 2 through its paces across a variety of environments—from the roaring waves of the beach, to the tranquil hinterland of Byron Bay, and within the confines of my home studio. My aim? To see how this system performs under different conditions and with varying sound profiles.
Pros and Cons of the DJI Mic 2
Pros:
- Versatility Across Locations: The DJI Mic 2 was incredibly adaptable. Whether I was at the beach or in a quiet forest, it managed to capture clear audio with minimal dropouts.
- Dual Microphone Setup: With two mics included, it’s perfect for interviews or collaborative content creation on the go.
- Ease of Use: The clip and magnet option for mounting the mics is handy, offering flexibility in attachment.
- Noise Reduction: In loud environments, the noise reduction feature can does drastically decrease the background noise, although it does have its downsides here.
Cons:
- Noise Reduction Sound Quality: While the noise reduction feature is great for cutting out background noise, it also tends to make voices sound thin and less natural. I personally hated the way it sounds with noise reduction on and it almost made me completely disregard the system as a result. Yes - the quality was that bad.
- User Experience: Navigating the tiny touch screen for settings can be cumbersome, lacking the intuitive ease I'd expect from a modern device. I would prefer if there was an app to change settings and make adjustments.
- Design: The case within a case setup feels bulky and redundant, making it slightly inconvenient to manage on the fly.
Testing the DJI Mic 2
Beach Test:
At Surfers Paradise Beach, I was amazed by how the mic managed to reduce the thunderous wave noise. There was a LOT of noise. This feature makes the system ideal for capturing content in busy, loud environments.
Hinterland and Home Studio Tests:
Moving to the quieter stretches of Byron Bay, the mic continued to perform well. The difference was stark when noise reduction was turned off—suddenly, my voice carried a full-bodied richness that the feature muted. Without the noise reduction on I was impressed with the sound.
Who Should Consider the DJI Mic 2?
This device is brilliant for content creators who travel or record in varied locations. It’s also a great choice for recording interviews or interactive events where mobility is key. I am a little hesitant to recommend it for loud environments though as even though it reduces a lot of background noise, the resulting audio isn’t usable in my opinion.
If you're primarily recording at home for podcasts, there are simpler and more cost-effective options that might be more suitable.
Final Verdict
Initially, I had mixed feelings—the design quirks and initial sound quality hurdles were off-putting. But with deeper use, the DJI Mic 2 revealed itself to be a valuable tool, especially for creators who need versatility and portability. At approximately 520 AUD, it’s not the cheapest option available, but its efficiency in dynamic environments justifies the cost for the right user.
Transcript:
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[00:00:00] Brianna: Today, I'm doing a review of the DJI Mic 2. This is the wireless system that is kind of the competitor to the Rode Wireless Pro. You get two microphones, you get a receiver, and there's also going to be a battle between the two Rode Wireless Pro and the DJI Mic 2. So if that is finished and up, you'll be able to go and see which one is actually going to be best suited for your use case.
[00:00:33] Now I've been testing this wireless microphone set up now for probably about a month and a half to put it through its paces in a bunch of different locations. So I wanted to go somewhere really loud. So we went to the beach and we have like crashing waves and things going on in the background. I tested it with a few different voices in that location.
[00:00:50] We also went out to hinterland of Byron Bay, and were again, different sounds, but not as many just to see what it sounds like in a location like that. Tested how far away you could be. So I just walked for a long time to find out whether it dropped out at any point. So I've tested that. And I also tested it in the home studio so that you could hear what it sounds like when it's in a location that is more controlled.
[00:01:15] Although in this space, this is not a very big room and it's not acoustically treated. So there is a bit of fluctuation with kind of, Bounce. And it's not a super dead space as they say in the audio industry. So that's something that I wanted to test as well. I also tested it at different locations. So as in, you know, on the lapel where you would normally kind of put it.
[00:01:35] And then also up here where people often have their microphones as well, especially on TikTok videos, you see everyone doing this. So I wanted to show you how it sounds in all those different places. The other thing I did as well is I also tested it using its noise cancellation feature. On and off, because I have particular things that I want to say about that particular feature of the DJI Mic 2 system.
[00:01:59] [00:02:00] So the first place I'm going to take you is to the beach and more specifically the surfers paradise beach on the gold coast, which is a beautiful stretch of beach.
[00:02:07] In this situation, we're going to have the noise reduction. setting on on the DJI and from there, you'll be able to hear how much of the beach sound of the waves, which are very loud by the way, how much of that it actually reduces. Let's go to the beach and do some tests. All right, I've got the DJI mic two on we're at the beach.
[00:02:30] We're going to do a test. With the ocean sounds in the background. Okay, so I have the wind, so on at the moment. Now I'm gonna take the wind so off, which is actually really easy. Now it's off. We're at the beach. It's quite windy today we're gonna see if we can tell the difference. So this is with the wind, so off wind.
[00:02:49] So off talking with the wind. So off and now I'm gonna put it back on. Okay, now we've got the wind top on testing with the wind top on. Testing with the wind sock on. I'm going to walk back a long way and then we're going to see when it cuts out.
[00:03:08] Okay, so now I'm about 150 meters
[00:03:12] is my dad, uh, at the beach making some sort of sandcastle. I would like you to tell me how you got this particular injury.
[00:03:23] You can't remember? I forget. But most of my injuries around this here are from paint cans. Oh. Where they're 20 litre lids and they've got sticky out bits. And I walk past them. Oh dear. Thank you very much. Talk to you later. Okay. I would like to know what you have been enjoying about your beach trip. The wind and the sun and the sand, you know, all the usual beach things, yeah.
[00:03:52] And the serenity. And the person next to you who gets up and puts all sand in your face. I like how you said that just [00:04:00] after the serenity. What did you think of that? So the beach I thought was really good. The way it actually reduced the sound of the waves was pretty incredible because those waves I'm telling you are, were very, very loud.
[00:04:12] And so listening back to that, I thought, gosh, this would be really good as a system in a location where it was really loud, like a concert or like a, yeah, something live where there's a band. bunch of people and you're trying to do some sort of content with your phone, then that would be just the perfect use case for that to have the noise reduction on.
[00:04:29] But did you hear how I sounded with the noise reduction on? Did I sound like myself or did I sound a little bit the other thing that was cool to see was just how far I could walk and it just didn't drop out of signal. Although I don't see a huge amount of use cases for that particular thing.
[00:04:47] Like some people may, especially in the more adventure travel kind of, uh, YouTube and create a economy. They may use that feature a little bit more, but not something that I would use all that often. And then you heard from a couple of other voices all with the noise reduction on just to see how that sounded with a male and female voice who happened to be my parents.
[00:05:07] So that was very nice. I'm not going to say too much more. We're going to get back into the tests. The next test we're going to go through is out in the hinterland. And this is with not a lot of sounds around us, kind of a use case that you may use the distance that you may be from the device. Maybe you're again, like a travel blogger or someone that reviews things on location.
[00:05:31] That's also with the noise reduction feature on so you can hear what that sounds like. Let's get into.
[00:05:39] Okay, so we're at the brooklet for this test. This is with the DJI mic 2, uh, we are spending a couple of days here and I'm going to show you a few different ways you can use this system for now. This is just me with the little wind sock thing on because there is a little bit of wind today and I'm just getting [00:06:00] you to hear what it sounds like as I walk around and as I do things, uh, as well, just to see whether you can hear anything that's.
[00:06:07] It's different or whether it sounds good. I've got rustling grass below me, whether you can hear any of that, as well as, as I said, any of the wind. And then as I transition onto ground that has lots of asphalt, like the road, how much of that road can you hear? Doesn't matter how much of that you can hear.
[00:06:30] The point of these kind of wireless systems is so that you can. Move your arms, move your legs, do whatever you're going to be doing and it not interrupt the actual flow and sound quality. There was actually also just a car that drove past there, so I'd be interested to know whether you can hear that as well.
[00:06:49] And yeah, so we're just walking along. The booklet is beautiful by the way, this is a really nice place to stay and as you see more of this review you'll see some of the locations that they have here on site which is really cool. This is not sponsored content, we just happen to be here for this round of testing.
[00:07:06] So there we go, that's the little test of me just out in the wilderness with the DJI Mic 2. Now, I'm testing it without the little puffy wind sock on, so it is just as is. I'm looking down at it at the moment. Hi, Alex from Bambi Media and we're testing the DJI Mic 2 out at the Brooklet, which is a property in Northern New South Wales. I can currently hear very little. I can hear some cars on a road about 50 meters behind us, some birds chirping in the background.
[00:07:39] So really background noise is not much. A little bit of gravel underfoot, but it's pretty quiet. There's a bit of birds chirping, but it'll be interesting to see how it's going and how it's performing with this level of background noise.
[00:07:55] So I'll walk a little bit further away from the camera, and we'll just see how clear the audio [00:08:00] stays. It's a beautiful place, the Brooklyn. It's got this awesome veggie patch on site, where you can harvest whatever you want for your dinners and lunches. There is a car coming. Uh, which you'll hear soon as it passes.
[00:08:15] You can see just how much noise you might get in the background of the shot. And that's again with the windsock on and everything like that. And there's a few magpies over here too. So as you can see I'm probably about 70, 80 meters away from the camera.
[00:08:31] So that's the DJI Mic 2 brought to you by me and back to Rhianna in the studio. All right. What did you think of that? So in this one, we had my voice as well as Alex's voice. So he has. You know, obviously a deeper voice than me. Could you hear different inflections on the sounds? How did we sound? How was the EQ?
[00:08:54] Could you feel and hear like a full body of the sound as well, or were there things missing perhaps? I want you to really give that a listen, maybe go back, make sure that you have headphones on so that you can really hear the intricacies of this microphone with those setups, with those different voices in those locations to double check what you think about this particular.
[00:09:16] device. Okay. Now that we've done that, we're going to go into the studio and you're going to hear me without the noise reduction feature on. So this would be a use case where there's no reason for you to have that noise reduction on and how I sound in those locations, both with the microphone close to my mouth.
[00:09:36] And on my lapel, so we're going to use this iPhone 14 pro here. You can see it's connected. On this end, it's connected. I've also made sure to switch the settings on the DJI to mono because it's just me recording by myself. I don't have two speakers, I don't have the need for two microphones meaning that I want it to make sure that there's no [00:10:00] left and right split, that it's all together.
[00:10:02] So I can see there is just one level here, which is the Um, mono channel, just the one recorder, which is what I'm doing now. You want to make sure when you're recording with your phone that you're recording with the back camera so that, because that's the best quality cameras, you want to make sure that you're using those.
[00:10:19] So we're going to run a test with the DJI with this set up recording into the phone and uh, this would be what most people would do. So I'm going to hit record okay, now I'm running the test of the DJI Mic 2 in my home studio.
[00:10:35] This is recorded Using just one microphone, not the second one in mono, so that it all comes through to the one channel, both ears, left and right. Although I'm completely deaf in one ear, so it makes less of a difference to me than others. In fact, stereo is such a pain because I can't hear what's happening.
[00:10:52] So, this is what it sounds like in this environment, with the microphone, uh, in a location that is, uh, It's probably what most people would do. Now that I've done that, I'm going to test it with it. What a lot of people do they hold onto it like this so that it can get closer to their mouth so that you get a better audio signal, but it's not really what you're supposed to do with them.
[00:11:13] Now I'm pretending that I'm a content creator. I mean, I guess I am a content creator, but I'm pretending that I'm doing this for a purpose other than testing the microphone. So this would be most people, they would have some sort of little tripod that they're holding, or it's on the desk and they're using this nice and close to their mouth.
[00:11:29] So we're going to test what that is like as well. So that's the sample for the DJI mic 2. So before I give you my thoughts, what did you think? Please put it in the comments. What did you think? How did it sound? Would this be a device that you would want to use? Now that you've written that comment, thank you so much for leaving a comment.
[00:11:51] I love replying to them. So the first thing I'm going to make a little bit of a remark on is this case [00:12:00] within a case situation. I mean, I like that. Yeah. Okay. It's all in one, but I find it kind of annoying like to get this thing out and then to get this thing out and then have this, like, you know, things are kind of stuck away there.
[00:12:15] I don't really like the design of this. I find it a little bit clunky to kind of get things in and out of, and it feels a bit like a bit of a waste. You know, it does keep everything really together, really secure, really easy to just pop in your bag as one thing. Now, if we go into the, what's actually in the hard case here, The actual devices themselves are really easy to clip on.
[00:12:42] I think they look cool too. Just being able to see the inner workings of the DJI. I really liked that. I like that it gives you the option of the actual clip as well as the magnet so that you've got a couple of different ways that you can connect. Two people. And it is really easy to connect to people.
[00:12:58] The magnet thing is a little bit tricky because you kind of got to like slide it under and then like get it. And then if it falls out, it's this tiny little magnet that is just somewhere on the floor. So if you happen to drop it, especially at the beach, that is a little bit annoying, but it does function a lot better if you use the magnet versus the actual clip.
[00:13:16] Like it just sounds better because it doesn't drop forward. Like I said, in one of those tests, it has an on button on the side. It has a record button as well. And then it has a pairing button. So it's pretty easy to understand how this works as a microphone. You just clip it on, you hit record. The haptic feedback that you get when you turn it on is really nice.
[00:13:37] So it gives you that, okay, this thing is definitely on. Uh, and then it's very easy to, when you hit record, there's a little red light that shows you that it is recording. And then there's the button gives you haptic feedback as well. So that kind of feature gives you that extra reassurance. That the device is working.
[00:13:54] And then the green light tells you that it's on as well. You can also plug this in to [00:14:00] your computer. In fact, it's necessary for you to plug it into your computer. If you've recorded to the device, as in, if you haven't recorded it on using a camera or a phone, you need to plug this in so that you can actually get the audio off of the device.
[00:14:16] So as far as the look of those, how it feels, how easy it is to like get out and pull in, put away, all of that is really good. The actual receiver, again, you know, I like that it's nice and small.
[00:14:27] What I do like is that it connects to the base of your phone so easily. Like it's just connected to the base of the phone or to, you know, the other DJI products, whatever you want to connect it to.
[00:14:39] It does do it very simply and easily, but it is quite bulky then. And it, you know, it's something that you have to manage as far as making sure that you're not hitting things by mistake. If you've got another device there. I like that they've done that, but I also don't like it.
[00:14:52] So the DJI mic two at time of recording, doesn't have an option for you to connect this to your computer or your phone and have any kind of app customizations, anything that you want to change on the device, you need to do. On the device itself. There's a little touch screen for this. You can change the receiver settings.
[00:15:12] You can change the transmitter settings and you can change overall settings, but they're all within this little touch screen. The touch screen is easy enough to navigate, but the feedback on it is not great. Sliding through to what you want takes a while. Sometimes when you're first using it as well, you don't know what all these features are.
[00:15:29] There's no way for you to figure it out easily other than to go back to the user manual of the DJI mic 2 and find the support documentation for it or a YouTube video to figure out what all of these things even are. So it's cool that it's simple and that it's all in one thing, But I actually don't like that it doesn't have some way for you to plug it in and mess with stuff like have an app.
[00:15:51] To me, that would be a better user experience than sitting there going, hang on now, where was that menu? And I got to click on this thing. And then I got to get, you know, scroll [00:16:00] through all this stuff. I don't like that. I really think that DJI should have an app that goes with this to make it more functional, make it easier for you to get what you want out of it.
[00:16:09] Even getting out of the settings as well, you got to kind of scroll back through things, and it's not, it's not great. The user guide on it I found to be a little bit confusing. It did explain things kind of well, but I feel like DJI, its first love was not audio. With the user guide and the support, it's lacking in that area, and that has been a bit of a downfall, like a bit of a negative thing for me, because I'm like, if this is supposed to be an audio device, this should be much easier for people to understand quicker.
[00:16:38] You can monitor your volume using the headphone on the side, which I like. And you can also obviously connect this to a camera as well as a phone, as well as to any DJI product that is supported for it as well. Now I want to talk about the noise reduction features. It's cool that it does a lot, that it can get rid of a lot of background noise, but I actually don't sound good at all.
[00:17:01] And anyone that I tested with the noise reduction on, whatever they've done, Makes you sound kind of like trash like you sound really thin it's not your full expression of your voice, which I would expect it wouldn't be the full expression, but It's the loss that you get from turning the noise reduction on to me makes it Kind of useless.
[00:17:22] I would not use it because it sounds bad. I honestly think it sounds bad. And I know that they do firmware updates and I hope that they're going to improve that particular feature because right now I think that it is just not something that is worth using. Whereas when you turn that off immediately, you sound so much better.
[00:17:43] And so if I was suggesting that for a, like, podcasting conversation or an interview, absolutely make sure that the noise reduction is off. And by default, it is on. So you need, that needs to be something that you go into almost immediately and go, okay, where am I going to [00:18:00] be recording? Am I going to be somewhere that's loud?
[00:18:02] If I'm not, get rid of it. Don't have that thing on because it sounds bad. So on Amazon right now, you can get this for around $520. That's Australian dollars, which. You get the case, everything you've seen here, you get two microphones, you get the receiver as well, and you get the case and everything. There's a link to do so in the description below. If that interests you, we are an Amazon affiliate.
[00:18:28] So we would get a teeny tiny little kickback if you end up purchasing this system. Who do I think this is for? For though. Okay. That's, that's the most important thing that I want to go through. Who is this for? If you are a person that likes to record on location a lot, if you want to go to other people's houses, to studios, to, you know, uh, anywhere that or conferences, and you want to take something that's really simple and easy to carry in your bag.
[00:18:56] If you want to go overseas and you still want to record content, that's the person that should have this. If you're a person that's going to be in your house recording, and this is for a podcast, then I wouldn't recommend this system because it's kind of overkill. Firstly, if it's just you, you don't need two microphones.
[00:19:15] You don't need to spend 526 on this whole setup, just so that you can record a podcast. You can have a microphone, which I've done plenty of microphone reviews, and you could spend as little as like 150, 200 Aussie dollars, And get something that will do that will suffice for your setup. You really have to think about what is your setup.
[00:19:35] If it's just you at your house, just a microphone on a stand, you would get all of that for less than 500 and something dollars, and you will have better audio. This would be something I would add to my arsenal later. If I was going to then go and interview people or if I want to start going out and into the world and maybe interviewing people on the street or whatever, then you could do this.
[00:19:56] If you're recording content with your phone and [00:20:00] you're wanting high quality sound for your phone Stuff as well, then this kind of system will work. I have done other videos as well where you can just use again, like a traditional microphone. You just plug that into the bottom of your phone. The Rode PodMic USB actually does that really easily.
[00:20:16] A lot of them are having that option available now, which is really, really cool. You're going to get better audio doing that than this, but it's like a lead. It's a bit more things. Whereas this is, I guess, maybe easier. You just put it on here, but the audio quality doesn't sound as good as it, if it's down here, it's better if it's here.
[00:20:37] And I don't really like the way this looks like this. I find distracting when I see that in videos, I'm like looking at this more than I'm looking at their face. The branding is so. big DJI that I find it distracting in those videos as well. But I can see how content creators just want to do something that's simple.
[00:20:56] You just plug that into the bottom of your phone, you connect it, you start recording, and you're done. You're good to go. So from that standpoint, it is really good. Uh, the other place that you might want to think about using a system like this is, is if you are shooting tutorials or you're shooting at a whiteboard or something like that, where you're going to be using your hands a lot and you're not going to be In the one place as much.
[00:21:19] So like we have a content creators Academy, which is a thing that we go to high schools and then we help them shoot a bunch of stuff. And we have workshops that we record and replay for them. We can facilitate that by having things like this with good quality audio. Even if we're not facing a microphone, you know, so that kind of situation is really good.
[00:21:41] If you're running workshops, live events, you want to get the sound from it and you are going to be moving around, then this kind of system will work for that as well. What is my overall picture of the DJI? When I first got it, I didn't like it. I didn't like that there was this bulky kind of case within a [00:22:00] case and I found this like, you know, having to scroll through things on this tiny little screen really annoying.
[00:22:06] There was a few things that I was I just didn't like straight out of the box there with that. I also didn't like that you could actually have the inputs come out without you knowing as well. It is strong, but it's not strong enough. There's a few little design things that I really didn't like when I first started using it.
[00:22:23] And then when I first started using it and I used it with the noise reduction again, I hated it. I was like, this is trash. This sounds so bad. There is no way I would ever use this. But then when I turned the noise reduction off, I was like, ah, okay, this actually is pretty good. So how I felt about it. Then when I first started versus now is much different.
[00:22:41] I definitely like this system now. There are definitely features of this that are really impressive. And I think that they've put a lot of effort into it. I would like the audio quality to be better. There are issues with the, like, Placement of the microphone and where it actually sounds good. Lapels always have issues because they, they can't be right close to the source.
[00:23:03] It's kind of down here or you have to hold it up here. I think there's better situations if you want really high quality audio, but if you want versatility, then I think that this is a really good system to get, especially if you have DJI products. Elsewhere as well. Very easy to connect to those. And smartphones are easy to connect to as well.
[00:23:22] So impressed with this in the end, I thought I was going to hate it. I didn't mind it. Audio quality is pretty good and, uh, something that I would recommend to people, but at the price point, I would also be asking, what do you need it for? How many people are you going to be recording? Where are you going to be recording?
[00:23:41] Do you need to spend 520 on this? If you want help with this kind of stuff and you really actually don't know what to choose, you can actually book in for a consult with me. We can run through where you're currently at, what you're trying to record. We can go through your recording location. That's a consult that you can click on using the link in the description [00:24:00] below and I would be happy to get on a consult with you.
[00:24:02] Just a 30 minute consult would probably be all we need to establish what you need for your setup. And then I will be able to send you through some links to some things that I think would really work for your situation. If you like this kind of content, you know, the drill, do you, you should, like it, subscribe it.
[00:24:20] Comment. I love comments. What do you think? How did it sound? Did you like it? And will you be buying one? Or is there something else you would buy instead?
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