for folks with DPA, Sanken, Sennheiser etc lavaliers these fluffy wind protection bubbles look really interesting.

www.bubblebeeindustries.com

some test units have now arrived and i've been out testing them with the DPA4060's over the last couple of days. I intend to do further, longer tests in the coming weeks and will be posting some audio soon, but for now here are my initial findings:

. one drawback of other fluffy's for small lavaliers is that they have a habit of falling off, which can be an expensive issue if one spends lots of time out and about recording in different conditions and environments. The BBi's (bubblebee industries) have a much better way of overcoming this issue by having very tight elastic (?) and also with the inclusion of the small 'bubble' space inside. 

. BBi's come in a variety of sizes for different mics. With the DPA's (with metal screen on) its actually the 03 size that fits best. The 04 size fits well with the DPA's with the foam pop-shields on also.

. I ran most side by side tests with the DPA4060's in this manner:

  1) no fluffy's on

  2) rycote fluffy's on

  3) BBi's on - size 04 (with & without foams)

  4) BBi's on - size 03

  5) BBi's on - size 02

tests focused on voice, wooded environment with birds, empty church, piano in church.

. so far i've not detected any large (in relative terms) differences between the rycote and the BBi's in terms of sound quality / clarity. One possible area of difference was slightly noticeable in tests on the voice but further tests are needed to fully explore this. It's a very, very slight difference and those who know me will know that I'm able to listen extremely critically when needed so its unlikely to be an issue  for most purposes, even if there is a difference - which i'm not convinced of yet (could have been down to very slight distance between each of the mics or indeed the voice travel itself).

. depending on their price (UK price still to be announced) for now i'd say the advantage of having fluffy's that stay on & that sound very clear indeed means the BBi's are a serious addition to the market. I would think that eventually all fluffy's will have some better way of holding the mics in place or built-in air gap - perhaps like the Rode Lavalier fluffy's, where the mics click into place and are held in a very small air protection cage. Until then, it looks and sounds like BBi have provided a solution that is well worth looking at.