Tom's Guide Verdict
The Joby Wavo Pro is a shotgun microphone with amazing, rich sound quality, and a fantastic ambient noise filter. This mic is a great way to save time: it’s a plug-and-play mic with live editing settings in the companion app.
Pros
- +
Wonderful companion app
- +
So easy to use
- +
Gain level monitor on the front and back
- +
Excellent sound quality
- +
Great ambient noise reduction
Cons
- -
Doesn't capture vocal warmth like a broadcast mic
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What do you look for in a shotgun microphone? I’m sure the Joby Wavo Pro has it all. If you're anything like me, you’re looking for ease of use, ambient noise reduction, wind reduction, and audio quality. And the Wavo Pro fills every single one. So does that make it one of the best microphones? Yes, yes it does.
I particularly love how easy the Wavo Pro is to use. The Wavo Pro is plug-and-play, and you can monitor your levels from the camera’s screen. It’s also a super-cardioid mic, meaning it’s less sensitive to sound from above, below, and the sides, and more sensitive to sounds directly in front of the camera. That makes it perfect for those pieces to camera.
If you need a super easy-to-use shotgun mic that sounds great, look no further than the Joby Wavo Pro. Find out the complete story in this Joby Wavo Pro review.
Joby Wavo Pro review: Cheat sheet
- What is it? A shotgun mic for mounting on cameras
- Who is it for? Videographers, content creators, video journalists
- What does it cost? It's currently $109 at Amazon U.S.
- What do we like? This mic is obscenely easy to use for the quality of the recording
- What don’t we like? Doesn’t capture vocal warmth in the same way desktop/broadcasting mics can
Joby Wavo Pro microphone review: Specs
| Price | $109 / £51 |
| Connectivity | 3.5mm double-ended TRS cable |
| Audio sensitivity | 19mV/Pa |
| Frequency response | 20Hz - 20kHz |
| Microphone type | Condenser |
| Polar pattern | Supercardioid |
| Battery | Rechargeable with USB-C |
| Battery life | 60 hours |
| Weight | 5.8 ounces |
| Dimensions | 5.4 x 1.1 x 4.3 inches |
| Colors | Black |
Joby Wavo Pro review: Price & availability
The Wavo Pro is priced at $109 at Amazon U.S. and £51 at Amazon U.K. at time of writing. We’ve also tested the Sennheiser MKE 400, which is $199, and shares many of the same specs as the Wavo Pro — namely a gain adjuster, super-cardioid polar pattern, and built-in ambient noise reduction. So the Wavo Pro shares many of the premium specs at a fraction of the cost.
Joby Wavo Pro review: Design & controls
The Wavo Pro looks as good as it performs. A well-made muff covers the tiny microphone capsule, and slips on and off should you require.
This is a well-designed, thoughtful microphone, and everything has everything you would need. There are two 3.5mm ports, one for a secondary mic, and one for the camera connection, and the microphone charges with its USB-C port. The only thing I wish it had was USB-C connection for microphone output, so you could record into your laptop in a pinch — but that’s not an integral feature for a shotgun mic.
To use, you simply attach it to your camera and switch it on. There’s a large power button on the back of the mic which also acts as a gain monitor during use. There’s live gain monitoring on the front of the mic as well as the back,, so you can check your levels even if you’re in front of the camera.
Joby Wavo Pro review: Features & connectivity
The included USB-C cable doesn’t connect as an input cable into laptops or phones. To record directly into a laptop, you need Joby’s adapter. However, this is a mic intended for cameras, and it connects super easily with an included TRS cable.
The mic is battery powered and Bluetooth controlled (via the phone app). Joby claims the battery lasts 60 hours. I used it for about 5 hours with the LED brightness at 100% and it’s down to 53% — so I’m not sure how valid that claim is.
In the app, you can add vocal tones like warmth and clarity (also known as ‘dark’ and ‘bright’). There’s also a live low-cut filter, which was really effective in testing. There’s no way to adjust the polar pattern, which I’ve only seen on mics like the Blue Yeti before.
Joby Wavo Pro review: Audio quality
As this mic is a super-cardioid, it will only pick up sounds directly in front of it. So if your subject is speaking into the top, sides, or back of the mic, they won’t sound their best. For testing, I used this microphone in a silent room, and then outside on the side of a busy-enough street near the office.
The first thing I’m going to discuss is the Wavo Pro’s polar pattern, which is where the mic physically picks up sound from. When I tested the mic outside, I noticed immediately that it was minimizing my voice when I was beside the camera, and picking up my coworker (in front of the camera) the best. This is great for reducing sound you don’t want, like cars, passers-by, and wind. The Wavo Pro would be great for content creators looking to present professional pieces-to-camera or head-on interviews.
In terms of actual, baseline audio quality, the first thing to note is that this isn’t a broadcast-quality mic, but it’s not trying to be. It’s a shotgun mic for attaching to cameras instead of using clip-on mics (although you can use the Wavo Pro and a clip-on mic simultaneously with the secondary mic jack on the Joby). So it’s unfair to compare the audio quality to something you’d record in a treated space. The Wavo Pro picks up subjects’ voices really well, outside or inside, and is a fantastic shotgun mic. Listen to this audio clip below of me in a recording studio, testing the Wavo Pro’s pop filter and audio quality with no outside interference. This was recorded on the Panasonic Lumix S5IIX ($2,199) camera with just the Wavo Pro attached.
Considering this is a shotgun mic, not a broadcast-quality mic, I’m really impressed with this performance. The plosive sounds are a little harsh, but the fricatives aren’t. I then tested the ambient noise reduction capabilities with a café white noise track playing in the background.
The Wavo Pro does a pretty good job of reducing ambient sound, but you can still hear the white noise track. I can tell that this is a cardioid mic just from this clip: my voice is the central focus, and the ambient sound is tinny and clipped. I was able to reduce this ambient noise even further in Audacity, but I could still hear the cafe noise.
After completing the initial tests, I took the camera outside with one of my colleagues. We tested the Wavo Pro’s range and performance in a noisy environment. Listen to this clip recorded outside with noisy traffic zooming past.
I think the Wavo Pro picks up my voice really well. If you were to use this in a busy city setting for street interviews (or something similar), this would be a great option.
It would be unfair to discuss range without visual assistance. Check out this video clip of me walking (backward, ungracefully) while the microphone still manages to pick up and focus on my voice.
The microphone’s features don’t stop there: the vocal settings in-app are not to be missed. As seen on other content creation mics like the Shure MV6 ($149), you can adjust vocal tones from ‘warm’, to ‘clarity’, also called ‘dark’ and ‘bright’. I activated the warm vocal tone, and I think my voice sounds better. It’s nice to know you can adjust this while recording and don’t have to rely on post-production.
So you can see what I’m talking about, here is the screenshot of the Wavo Pro app.
Overall, I think this microphone has excellent audio quality. On top of that, the massive range and the ambient noise reduction technology mean that this is the ideal shotgun mic for anyone shooting video in non-treated locations.
Joby Wavo Pro review: App
The Wavo Pro connects to an app called, surprisingly, Wavo Pro. It’s available on the App Store and Google Play. The app looks super nice, with bright, aesthetically pleasing backgrounds and easy-to-navigate screens. I connected my Wavo Pro to my iPhone 11 easily via the app, and was able to customize the mic’s settings.
As you can see in the screenshots above, you can activate and adjust things like the low-cut filter, equalizer, and vocal warmth and clarity in the app. I liked how the vocal warmth added some sophistication to my voice, although that’s always the first thing I do when I unbox a new mic.
Joby Wavo Pro review: Verdict
I can’t find anything majorly wrong with this microphone. True, the ambient noise reduction filter perhaps hardens voices, in a way traditional broadcast mics don't. If you're going to be recording outside, though, you'll need the ambient noise reduction. This mic's so good that I doubt you’d need a backup. The audio recording in a treated room is rich and clear, without the ambient noise reduction required. Although the pop filter isn’t as robust as broadcasting mics, it's a small price to pay for the high ease of use. It’s lightweight, making it easy to attach to your camera, and the muff minimizes wind noise well, even without the dead cat.
If you’re in a particularly loud setting, the dual gain level monitors on the front and back mean you can keep track of your levels without having to ask your videographer. But even if you were, the built-in ambient noise reduction means your voice will be front-and-center, anyway.
Although it’s a little expensive, the Wavo Pro is a microphone that simply works. It works exactly like it should. Exactly as you’d want it to. You won’t need another shotgun mic if you've got the Wavo Pro.
