DPA Microphones - 4060 CORE Normal-Sensitivity Omni Lavalier Microphone

DPA 6060/61 isn’t available as CORE+ yet. 4060 and 4061 are.

The best is DPA 6060, 4060 sounds better in my opinion, but 6060 has a smaller profile, but cos11d is a work horse for sure.

The best professional quality? That would be a current Lectrosonics, Zaxcom, Sound Devices, or Wisycom wireless system. There are many models of transmitters and receivers, but for argument sake let’s say Lectro DBSM and DCR822. As for lav mics themselves? DPA 4060, DPA 6060 or Sanken COS-11D. All great. (There’s tonnes of other options top, those are just too of mind). Boom mic will sound better in general though, and best would be a Schoeps CMIT5U or miniCMIT or SuperCMIT for exteriors, Sanken CS-3e for very noisy locations that need a laser-like focus, and a Schoeps CMC6 MK41 or Sennheiser MKH50 for interiors. Best would be used with a plug-on transmitter like a Lectrosonics DPR-A or HMa, and the paired receiver running into either a Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Sonosax, or Aaton recorder with maybe a Sonosax or old Cooper 208D mixer in front of it. (Again there’s tonnes of somewhat equivalent options for mics, transmitters, and mixers, I’m just illustrating a point.) Then presuming that’s all utilized properly and recorded well (meaning proper wirelesss signal distribution and power distribution and proper gain staging), it would be a matter of taking the best of both worlds, the open natural sound of the boom and combined it with the up front body of the lav, using Auto Align Post 2 to phase align the two. Then some in depth editing of cut/fill/fade, layer in additional ambience, foley, library effects, sound design, etc. and mix using EQ/compression/reverb/etc.. with a high degree of automation across many parameters written in through a physical control surface for fader moves. Listening while moving a physical control gives way better and faster results than drawing automation lines and curves on with a mouse. or wait… did you not actually mean THE BEST MOVIE-LIKE QUALITY for realsies? People seem to get okay results with the DJI for a cheap, social-media-quality, streamlined, user friendly system. [If you learn](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk55CEmjflkbEK-P8jag5pqZ1CpbjaVwZ&si=5dkXp77d7NCOQdaG) how to do a half decent job in post production you could probably squeeze a lot more life out of it too. Or if you can tolerate a little more complexity in operation, a Sennheiser G4 system would probably sound better. Best upgrade you could do for it is to replace the kit mic with something better like a Sanken COS-11D. Just gotta make sure it’s wired correctly. Recording separately from the camera and syncing up afterwards also will help since camera audio inputs typically have terrible noise floors. A cheap entry level recorder like the Sound Devices MixPre series would be where to look for that. Again increasing complexity. Sorry, didn’t mean to be snarky at the start, but it’s extremely unrealistic to expect the BEST or MOVIE-LIKE out of inexpensive consumer/prosumer grade gear. The truth is that there is an unbelievable amount of cost and skill that goes into getting that movie sound you’re talking about. There’s a reason it’s a whole department.

Indeed it’s a complicated question to answer, and it ultimately depends on the person’s voice, but If you’re asking “best” lav mic without a boom, and you’re renting, I would say get DPA 4060’s or 6060’s. COS 11-D’s are great as others have said, and they’re workhorses, but in my experience the DPA’s generally surpass it in quality, and arguably have the same tonal quality as a nice boom mic would.

DPA 4060 lav and Zaxcom wireless is an option. Zaxcom wireless can record and transmit simultaneously, in case there’s dropouts. They also sound fantastic.

COS-11Ds are work horse lavs that sound solid. In terms of sound quality I like to lean more on the DPA 4060 or 6060 line but they are more fragile. It's incredible pairing the DPA shotgun mics and lavs with how close they sound alike in times when you have to use the wire instead of the boom in post. In rooms that have reverb/echo I feel like the COS-11D's perform better over your average high quality lav but that's just my opinion.

I don’t think there is a single best microphone. COS-11D are very sturdy and work well to get a decent sound, but will always sound like a lavalier mic. DPA 4060 sound absolutely wonderful, but the capsule can be hard to hide in tight clothing. DPA 6060 wants to solve this problem and has a very small capsule, but doesn’t sound as good. Countryman B6 are wonderful to hide, but hard to get a good sound out of it with certain voices. And so on, and so on. Every mic has its strengths and weaknesses. The COS-11D are a good work horse in my opinion that can get you a long way, but for some cases it’s simply the wrong mic

The built in mics on zoom recorders are good enough, and you won’t gain much by adding more cheap mics (rode et al) apart from the annoyance of additional wires and gear to carry around. The beauty of the small zooms is portability. I have used recordings from the h4n mics in multi million productions. Sure it’s not as nice as any number of posher options but the best mic for the job is the one you have in your pocket then and there. I take my zoom with me on hikes because it’s small and light and simple. That means when I happen across something unique or interesting, it’s there and ready to go. If you do want to up your game and stay portable then you could try some of the tiny DPAs 4060 or 4066 etc . These are super light and amazing for the price and size. Easy to rig unusual items and leave unobtrusively for wildlife on a long line.

More of a live sound thing and not really low budget, but I'd recently found out that sticking a DPA 4060 inside a harp can work wonders even in a busy arrangement.

Honestly, the w.lavs sound great. I own dpa 4060's and wlav's. Have had cos11's in the past and used everything in between.  If you have w.lavs and they work for you, stick with them. No need to go out and spend extra money for minimal benefit.  Put it this way - the viewers won't know the difference.  Even the chin strokers on Reddit would struggle to tell the difference.  As someone who also does a lot of post, as long as I can hear what's being said with as little noise/rustle etc, that's really all that matters.