Joby sent me their Wavo Pro camera for review. Initially, my impression is that it appears worthy of its price point and target audience of professional content creators and storytellers. Joby is touting it as their most advanced on-camera shotgun mic – let’s see!
JOBY Wavo Pro–Solid Design
The JOBY Wavo Pro microphone comes equipped with a foam windscreen (preinstalled), fuzzy windjammer and TRS cable – though no TRRS-TRRS cable is included. It features an interesting yet cool look; more “substantial” than the Rode or Lume Cube mics I’ve reviewed; though this would be expected considering its higher price point; still it looks professional enough for interviews of CEOs despite being roughly 5.4″x4.3″x1.1″ footprint it weighs 1/3 of a pound!
The body construction combines aluminum, ABS plastic and Hytrel (both types of thermoplastic). It feels solidly built; especially important is the cold shoe mount which provides a solid grip on a DSLR camera; windscreens fit securely; while Rycote shock mount’s unique design provides stability for clear sound recording.
The Joby Wavo Pro’s microphone controls and indicators are highly intuitive, offering all of the essentials in an uncluttered design. LED lights on its back display important real-time notifications about power, audio level, Bluetooth connectivity, battery life and longevity; up to 60 hours can be obtained on a full charge thanks to its lithium battery; furthermore it will auto power off when your camera turns off!
Joby Wavo Pro: Audio Capturing
The Joby Wavo Pro features an ultra cardioid polar pattern and has an impressive frequency response range between 20Hz-20kHz (+/-3dB). Max SPL and sensitivity specifications are both acceptable; signal to noise ratio for this mic class is also quite satisfactory; thus providing excellent capturing capabilities of sounds around it. Simply put, this mic does a superb job in capturing sounds around it.
Active Noise Reduction, or ANR, should be your top consideration when buying a microphone. ANR allows you to filter low-frequency noise out of recordings made by wind and general handling, which often cause vibrations that introduce unwanted noise into the audio stream. Although I found no complete reduction of such intrusions during testing with ANR on its own, ANR nonetheless helped ease their intensity significantly.
JOBY Wavo Pro: Safety Track This microphone offers another great feature – safety track recording! When turned on, this feature records a copy of your audio signal to your second audio channel at 10dB lower than your primary channel; should your primary track ever encounter clipping, this safety track can serve as an invaluable lifeline – although note that its functionality may be disabled when recording with multiple mics simultaneously.
JOBY Wavo Pro — Secondary Mic
This mic base offers a 3.5mm connection for attaching a secondary microphone for recording separate signals. In addition, its handy buttons let you individually boost camera output and secondary mic input up to +20dB independently. Furthermore, Mix Mode records on left channel only while Mono Mode mixes both microphones together for simultaneous recordings on both channels.
JOBY Wavo Pro–App Control
This app is an invaluable asset during any video shoot, enabling easy gain adjustments, setting EQ settings and toggle ANR toggle. Bluetooth connectivity worked immediately for me – although after my initial installation of it there was an update error requiring my second attempt before everything worked fine – providing instantaneous control from an intuitive interface that won’t slow you down at all.
