14 DAY TRIAL // Yes, it looks either ridiculous or creepy; a decision hasn't been taken yet: the Binaural Microphone from Otokinoko looks more like a piece of Halloween gadgetry than a professional-grade audio tool. Yet, the Japanese who have developed such a contraption claim that the soundtracks you'll be recording using this uncanny microphone will sport more realism and true-to-life character than any other tracking sessions made with usual mics, mono or stereo.
Now, it might prove that such a claim is not that far from reality because the Otokinoko Binaural Mic seems to replicate with great fidelity the way humans perceive various sound sources with their ears. All in all, you'll notice this weird microphone among thousands of others: let alone the fact that it comes in a bright blue color, it has two human ears attached to it!
Now, these are just molded replicas of the human ears... and I wonder whose ears they are - have they tested a lot of people to check who's hearing better or what? In any case, the ears are even stranger, since their coloring is nothing close to normality: a deep and oily dark blue, drawing them closer to the fantastic realm than to the real life. Nevertheless, Otokinoko have stated that their Binaural microphone is able to replicate the way humans (with non-blue ears) perceive sound, in an omni directional 3D manner and with the natural fluctuations derived from the constant movement of the head; capturing these intricate sound variations leads to a stronger feeling of "being there" and acoustic realism, Otokinoko claim.
The Otokinoko Binaural Mic can be attached to a handy cam and it's most likely you'll get a better stereo panning using a dual mic than with the camera's built-in unit. Or you can carry this interesting piece of audio technology in your hand and test people's reaction as you ask them to speak to the blue ears...
Until the superior recording quality of the Otokinoko Binaural Mic is scientifically and publicly proven, we'll just stick to the vast majority of people uttering their skepticism (despite the fact that we KNOW that stereo mics are better than the mono ones). And if we add the (even more) dramatic price of $3,899 for the blue-eared microphone, things just cannot get weirder than this.
PS: I wonder how that old Eiffel 65 tune would sound - if recorded with the Otokonoko Binaural Mic: "I'm blue, da-be-de, da-ba-da..."
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