Sound Shark
Testimonials
Sound Shark Testimonials
Here is what our customers have to say about using the Sound Shark.
“I would highly recommend this (the Sound Shark). Highly, highly, highly recommend this.”
“The Sound Shark is perfect for independent film makers, hybrid photographers, videographers or really anybody that just wants great quality sound from a distance. I was amazed. You could point it anywhere in this loud convention hall and you can actually hear specific conversations.”
Super stoked. This Sound shark is super superior to what I have been using. Just during my first testing it was amazing. I am going to do some more next week with my video guy to get his input. I love it. It is what I have been waiting for. Great sound and quality. I tested it against an Omni directional mic, a lav mic indoors. Omni was too low in the sound, Lav was too much interference, Shark was great sound and no interference. Outside tested it voice at 5, 10, 15 ft, while traffic going by, you could still very faintly hear the traffic, but voice was great. Tested voice away from traffic 5, 10, 15 ft, super great.
I was amazed at the quality of the Sound Shark audio. For me, one less step I need to do in post production is more free time for me. The recording is high quality straight into camera, no hiss noise. I also have the Zoom H1. I compared My Sound Shark to my shot gun mic, a lav mic and the quality and simplicity was great. For me it just comes down to quality and simplicity. And just for extra points no need for batteries on the Sound Shark, you are always ready to work.
I do this for a living, what I paid for it, gets paid off with one job. Was is worth what I paid, no brainer “YES”
“Verry happy with the product (Sound Shark)!”
“I have to say Sound Shark is truly an incredible audio capturing device. I currently work with young children who make short films as well as shoot my own films and in many instances I have used the Sound Shark on a monopod and attached it to an external recorder instead of a boom mike on a boom pole to capture audio. It is especially useful in tight shooting spaces where capturing audio with a boom mike would be impossible or at times when the crew is only one person-me and I don’t have a dedicated boom operator. It is also much easier for my students to use when capturing audio for their films as they are too young, physically, and inexperienced to be able to use a boom mic/pole configuration. Both my students and I love working with Sound Shark! Thank you for inventing Sound Shark!!!”
“Please forgive me for taking so long to respond to your question about the status of my experiment with the “Sound Shark”.
In short, largely due to your suggestions, it has been a resounding success. It took a while to find the right combination of elements. But, your suggestion regarding the “Zoom H1 Handy Portable Digital Recorder” was the piece that made it work.
I now sit in meetings aiming my reasonably unobtrusive Shark at speakers as much as 40 feet away and hear them quite satisfactorily. The Sound Shark output goes through the Zoom H1 to an Oticon Streamer, a device which sends a BlueTooth signal to my hearing aids. I am very happy with it. If I ever get a few minutes to look into it, I am going to try to send notes to a few hearing loss associations, telling them about my success with the Sound Shark.
Thank you very much for your help.”
Thank you for your much needed help. Your Sound Shark enabled my husband and me to be in a conference about newer, more effective ways of helping people in counseling. (Read more.)
I started filming my kids soccer games about 5 years ago and I have been slowly amassing gear throughout the years. Like many parents, I started off just filming clips here and there using my phone, then to a cheap tripod and a point and shoot camera, then to a nice carbon fiber tripod and a camcorder and now to a 21’ hi-pod and a 4k camera. My goal over the years has been centered around the desire for higher quality videos (increased FPS, increased resolution, a higher view point and a smoother viewing experience). After years I finally felt I had fine-tuned this aspect of my filming and yet it felt like something was still lacking. When reviewing my videos I was constantly being pulled away from the action on the field and distracted by sideline conversations, crying babies and overzealous cheering parents. This is when I began my pursuit of higher quality audio. At that point, I made the decision to purchase my first shotgun mic. I have been filming with a shotgun mic for over 2 years now and it brought something new to my videos. I can now hear the tap of the ball each time a player took a touch and every now and then I can hear players calling each other’s name out for a pass. I was very pleased with my setup and thought that my days of collecting gear was done. This was until I was watching a professional match and I happened to see people on the sidelines holding parabolic mics. I didn’t know that’s what they were called at that time and I’ve actually seen them before but didn’t pay much attention to them but after a little research I realized that something like this might really help me in my videos. After further research I found Sound Shark and with their satisfaction guarantee I figured what did I have to lose. After just filming one game I realized this was a game changer. Not only does the tap of the balls come in crisper but I can hear the shuffling of feet on the turf, the conversations between players, the coach providing instruction and even the breathing from the kids after making a hard run. All of this was now coming into my videos clear (sometimes too loud and clear 🙂 ) while at the same time isolating away the sounds from the spectators around me. Audio was an afterthought of mine at the beginning of my “crazy parent filming his kids playing soccer” saga but I am now a full believer that it is just as critical as the video. Don’t waste years buying and experimenting with different audio devices and just take the plunge. You will be amazed!
Rave reviews from our audio guy!
I used one of your Sound Sharks to give us live sound coverage for my wife and I’s outdoor wedding ceremony without having any mics or cables on us or the officiant that would get caught in photos or video at the altar. Plus, everyone could hear us in the back loud & clear even with the Sound Shark off-axis to side about 20 feet away, hidden in the shrubs (see pics attached).
One of our guests asked me afterward how we could “project” so much without any microphones! (our wedding videographer is looking to get one too now)
Again, thank you so much for your product and for enabling us to have great sound at our wedding that was hassle-free!
Best regards,
“This is a revolutionary product that I have tested fully and I am in love with. The sound is better than if you were to wear the mic as a lav. Great stuff.”
“The amazing beauty of the Sound Shark is that in about a minute one can use whatever lav they have as one of the world’s farthest reaching mics simply by inserting it into the parabolic dome! One can use their lav in a sit-down interview one minute and a couple of minutes later as a fantastic shotgun. And we can easily afford to use two mics at once; one for the person talking on the left and the other for the person talking on the right.”
“I bought mine a few months ago. I’m videotaping kids in a interview style, in loud cafeteria’s and on the little league fields with all sorts of background chatter. The only comment I have to share is IT WORKS! My staff and I were amazed the first time we went out and the conditions were simply awful with over 100 kids in a cafeteria basically yelling. That darn Shark worked even with the kids that were mumbling & I couldn’t hear them from the camera 4 feet away! It’s a great system and I feel it’s worth the money. I just bought a second one because our business is growing with this volume idea we came up with. I hope it continues to grow and I buy 10 more. Do yourself a favor folks. Don’t be cheap! Go buy yourself professional equipment if you want to look professional and most of all, don’t be a “know it all” saying it can’t work, when you haven’t even used the product.” (posted in response to comments on a blog post about the Sound Shark)
“I am semi-retired and spend 2-3 days a week hiking mountains near my home. I always carry a Panasonic 4K camera on a monopod. I had used a Rode Pro camera mounted mic in the past for animal and nature sounds, but there is no comparison with what the Sound Shark does for drawing in bird and other animal sounds. Right now is the Elk Rut and I can hear cows mewing and get clear audio of Elk Bugling that I could never record before. It is light, easy to handle and no problem mounted on top of my camera.”
“I am able to pick up sounds that weren’t ever possible with a normal shotgun mic. And the lack of wind noise is mindblowing!”
“Your product is sweet. I look forward to not having to setup my boom mic for my e-cards.”
“I just love it (the Sound Shark), I will use it a lot for wildlife and interviews!” “By the way, I am now doing live broadcasts fro a company called XXXXXXX on YouTube. And I only use the Sound Shark. Why? Because for live streaming I have laptops running at high fan speeds around me and a (high quality) USB mic will pick up fan noise – it is not sufficiently directional! With the Sound Shark it can stand next to the laptops and only pick up my voice, really superb!”
“Are you trying to bankrupt me? I’m just a poor Canadian A1. I pulled the parabolic out of the box yesterday and instantly had a ton of interest from some of the crew. My tech manager loved it. He wants one for his DSLR. He came in during the game and listened in real time. I’m sure he’ll be ordering one soon. I’ve attached some pics of where I mounted it. Thought it was pretty ingenious. You may notice in some of the pictures a shotgun on top of the lens. Had to do the A B comparison. Well, no comparison at all. I’ll take it.”
I purchased this device in the Premium Kit form (i.e. With an included Lav mic) for a somewhat specialized application: I am documenting the experience of 5 adult ice skaters as they train for a “skating with the stars” competition, and I need to capture video/audio of them practicing and hopefully saying humorous things as they struggle on the ice. There is not time to individually mic everyone using wireless lav mics, as they tend to be rushed when arriving and leaving practice sessions, and attaching lavs properly to prevent noise from shifting clothing and breathing is time consuming. So I am using a Sound Shark instead. While it is clear that the sound being picked up when the subjects are 20 or more feet away is “remote”, it is pretty amazing how well this device works. It is completely meeting my needs. I am also impressed at how well it works in shorter distance situations: very similar sound to having the subjects wearing a lav, but with no clothing noise issues, and great protection from wind noise. So I have started using it for casual interview audio too, with very good results. Unfortunately and for no clear reason the included lav mic simply stopped working after about 2 weeks. One call to the company was all it took to get a replacement sent out, which arrived 3 days later (and of course I was able to use one of my standard Lavs with the Sound Shark in the interim). They were very surprised to hear about the mic failure and seemed genuinely interested in getting the unit back to find the cause. They seem to truly care about customer satisfaction, and were very easy to work with. Based on all of this I can highly recommend both the product and the company. Five stars even with the mic issue.
The Teacher Learning Network is a provider of professional development for teachers. We run live training events that are broadcast online. We use the sound shark to capture the questions that come from the audience. Being able to use the Audio Shark is much easier and more flexible that setting up multiple microphones around a venue. We have spent a lot of time looking at ways to capture sound from the audience when they ask questions. The Sound Shark is meeting our needs in being able to hear questions from the audience well enough to broadcast online.
Solution to my bird song identification problems!
I had been trying to use my iPhone with apps (BirdNET, Merlin, Song Sleuth) to identify my local forest birds. These apps allow you to use your phone to record calls and then offer ID suggestions. But it didn’t work – the bird calls were buried in background noise of the recordings.
I looked into options to improve the recordings of my phone. Professions use parabolic microphones or shotgun mics and a dedicated recorder – kits costing thousands of dollars. DIY options required more audio engineering chops than I had or had time to learn. Even adding an external microphone and adapter could add horrible background hiss if not matched. There was no “Plug and Play” system for recording to a smart phone.
I found the Sound Shark – a portable parabolic receiver/microphone combination. They have great information on their website (kloverproducts.com/sound-shark/us/) and their YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/Sound SharkVideos). I contacted their Customer Service to ask what I would need to connect the Sound Shark to my iPhone and get adequate recordings. My email was quickly answered by the most knowledgeable, attentive Customer Service Rep I’ve encountered. I soon realised the “Rep” was Paul Terpstra, the company owner and developer of the Sound Shark. Paul worked with me to get the system I wanted, even testing microphones and adapters.
Now I have a handheld parabolic mic system that plugs into my phone and makes great recordings. We added a phone mount, so I can watch the sonogram on the app while I aim the Sound Shark and record.
Sound Shark is 9” consumer version of a 16” system Paul developed for Fox Sports. Sound Shark Audio (for Consumers)/Klover Products (for Professionals) are great companies. Sound Shark will set you up whether you want to use a smart phone or a dedicated recording system.
They make the Sound Shark in Wisconsin, so they are pure, mostly.