For the ultimate run & gun audio, a good X-Y stereo condenser mic is a wonderful thing.

I presently use a Rode NT4 on my primary EX1. If you've seen/heard my videos here on XR, then you already know it's a great-sounding mic with superb front-to-back ratio and imaging.

But it was not designed to be mounted on a small-format camera. It was designed to be perched on a mic stand. It's big, heavy and has a lot of ballast (the handle area contains a battery, but if it's phantom-powered, the battery is unnecessary.)

The business end of the NT4 is quite small, and weighs maybe 2 ounces. It's the handle cylinder that makes the bulk of the mass and volume.

The thought occured to me that a good machinist could make a shortened and slimmed-down cylinder that would accept the thread size of the head, and support a five-ping XLR on the other end. The diameter could be 24mm, just right for the EX1 mic mount.

Alas, I am reluctant to hack up my expensive NT4, so I scour the internet looking for a more compact alternative.

The microphone array built into the front of my Zoom H4 stereo recorder sounds pretty good, and a bit more bright than the NT4 on the high end, and it's mic capsule system is small enough to fit inside the Sony EX1's built in mic housing. Hmmm... If Sony had put in a nice X-Y pair into that handle, along with attenuator controls, as with external inputs, one might never need to use an external mic for most recording situations. But I digress...

Audio-Technica makes a couple of X-Y mics, but their frequency response is rather lackluster. Schoeps makes a nice set, but it's too large and heavy for camera use.

At this point, I'm thinking this calls for a DIY project. The alternative is to hack up a perfectly good NT4.

I'd say there's an untapped market for an excellent X-Y stereo mic for the EX1 and other small form factor cameras. Let's hope someone in a position to manufacture has had this ephiphany already.