The Joby Wavo Plus is a small, super cardioid directional microphone built for creators. It's designed to be attached to your camera like most vlog setups, and it can also be plugged directly into your smartphone for mobile content creation.
Joby did send me this microphone to review, but this is not sponsored - no money changed hands. If it's good, I'll tell you it's good. If it sucks, I'll tell you it sucks. Let's see if the Wavo Plus is worth your money. I'll rate it from one to 10 in four different categories: vlogging, studio recording, audio quality, and value.
Vlogging
I like vlogging with this mic for three reasons:
It's small and light, so it's not gonna bulk up your vlogging pack, especially if you travel, this is great.
It has a built-in safety track, so if something explodes or something else really loud happens that you have no control over whatsoever, you'll always have an audio track to go back to that's recorded at 10 decibels lower.
It automatically turns on when you turn your camera or smartphone on, which is great because you don't run the risk of filming an entire day and having not turned on your microphone. I've done that before, it's not fun.
All of these features match the legendary Rode VideoMic Pro Plus, but the Wavo comes in at a cheaper price point, a smaller form factor, and it has an LED indicator light to let you know how much battery is left in the microphone, going from green to orange to red to, well, dead. In this category, I've gotta give it a 10/10 because it has every single feature that vlog creators need and then some. You can't ask for more.
Studio Recording
Back to that indicator light, monitoring the battery level of the Wavo Plus is really important because there's no way to swap out its battery. However, it does get 30 hours of recording time on a full charge, which is plenty of battery life to vlog an entire weekend or to get up to three full day shoots in a studio.
Putting up a boom pole and getting a mic like this as close to your talent as possible is the real key to getting great audio. The Wavo has a threaded bottom so it can be easily screwed into a boom pole, which honestly looks kinda funny because it's so short and stubby (there's plenty of jokes to be made about this form factor, but I am not going to).
I think the most advantageous feature of this mic when it comes to studio recording is having the ability to monitor your live audio. Not every camera has a headphone jack that allows you to listen to the audio that's being captured by the camera while you're recording. The Wavo Plus skips the middleman and has a headphone input right at its base so that you can monitor all the audio coming into your camera through the microphone and make little adjustments on the fly - that way your ears can be focused on the audio and your eyes can be focused on getting the perfect shot. This obviously isn't just limited to studio recordings. It's a great feature when you're working in the field as well.
Audio Quality
None of the Wavo's features are worth anything if the audio quality itself isn't good. So I've pitted it up against my current favorite microphone, the Rode VideoMic Pro Plus. Click here to listen to the audio comparison tests in my video review.
Let me know if you can hear a difference in the comments below. I'm going to be honest, they are quite close. In my opinion, I still like the Rode better. It sounds a little bit more natural to my ears. I'll give the Wavo a 7/10 in quality and the Rode an 8/10.
The fact that they're even coming close is surprising to me because Rode is a well-known, well-established pro-sumer brand when it comes to audio and Joby's new at this - plus the Wavo costs less.
Value
At $200 USD, the Wavo Plus costs $100 less than the Rode VideoMic Pro Plus when you buy them both brand new.
Considering the strong audio quality and all of the features that are packed into such a tiny little package, I've got to give the Joby Wavo Plus a 7/10 in value. It's still a bit of an investment and it's got a kind-of plasticy, small, lightweight build, but for content creators who are looking to up their audio game, I think this is an excellent option.
My Opinion
The Wavo Plus is just so small, so feature packed, and so high quality that I have trouble recommending any other on-camera microphone here in 2024. Sure, the Rode sounds a little better, but $100 better? I don't think so. What did you think of my Joby Wavo Plus review? Let me know in the comments!
Happy creating. See you 'round the Underground.
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