Audio-Technica ATR-3550 Lavalier microphone is crap?

[Donovan]

I purchased this lavalier microphone yesterday and received it today. First mistake I made was my intention to use it with my iPhone. My quick and dirty searching kept showing this as something that would work, but you have to purchase an adapter to make it so. Ok, no big deal.

However, my other intent was to use these in the studio. I realize they're a bit on the cheap side, but I didn't realize how much trouble they would be. I connected it to my mixer (Mackie 1402), and you have to jack the gain and the audio all the way up to get even a peep of audio out this microphone. Not an acceptable situation, especially since the amount of "hiss" and noise that goes along with it drowns out any hope of getting real intelligible audio.

So, before I send this thing back and get my $18 refunded, any ideas as to why it works this way on my mixer? I've connected it to the microphone input on a computer and it works fine. I've seen reviews where it works fine connected to cameras, etc. The unit is powered, so there's no need to enable phantom power on my mixer (even though I tried that and it didn't work either).

[TomSinclair]

A quick look through the reviews of this mic are interesting. One reviewer bought four and noticed the volume on one was very low. Other reviewer commented on low volumes, too.

May just be your unit.

[Donovan]

A quick look through the reviews of this mic are interesting. One reviewer bought four and noticed the volume on one was very low. Other reviewer commented on low volumes, too.

May just be your unit.

I've requested a replacement from Amazon. Should be here Tuesday. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it works. Otherwise, I'm done with it. Always bites me in the ass when I try to do something on the cheap. LOL

[andrewzarian]

I am still on the hunt for a good lav mic. The few "good" Lavs i have seen cost around 300 bucks each.

[Donovan]

Mike helped me find an adapter, so I'm waiting for it to come in. It's 1/8" female to XLR adapter. I don't expect this to sound as good as my regular studio mics, but as long as it's close for the money, I'm ok with it for now.

My main goal was to have something to connect to my iPhone for when I'm recording out of the studio, which I had to buy an adapter for it as well.