Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2023
Right off, if you don’t care to read my whole review, here’s the condensed version: Godox has created a winner with the Virso M2, a system that will go with me every time I have a need to record audio with one or two lavaliers.
Rather than making this a repetition of all the performance specs, etc., which you can read in the product listing, I’d like to just give my impressions, both positive and negative, as a long-time videographer with many decades of professional audio experience.
I’ll also say up front that I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to prove or disprove the company’s claims for RF operating range. I have, though, tested for signal integrity far beyond any distance that I ever work between a wireless mic and the receiver, and have had no drop out issues!
The Virso M2 system comes complete, ready to use, though minus micro SD cards, which can be added for optional recording directly within each transmitter. Attachment of the transmitters to the talent and the receiver to the camera is with flat spring clips, which are of the type widely used today, with the receiver's clip, in particular, designed to slide into a hotshoe.
The built-in batteries in each transmitter and the receiver are easily charged via their integrated USB-C connector, using a very handy charging cable that takes a signal from a USB charger and splits it to three separate outputs. Or, you can return the transmitters and receiver to their case and they will automatically charge from the case’s internal battery bank. That case offers a USB-C input on its end, where you may connect a USB power supply to simultaneously charge the three wireless components and the case’s built-in battery bank. And LEDs on the front edge of the case display the battery bank’s status.
The battery life for the transmitters and receiver is crazy long. This is a great asset since you can’t replace batteries in the middle of a shoot. It’s assuring to know that you won’t have to worry about that, but just need to put the system on a charger between shoots.
Pairing the components couldn’t be simpler and an LED indicator on each shows the pairing status.
As with the transmit/receive range, I have zero complaints about the audio performance of the Virso M2 system, and that alone might earn this system a permanent place on my gear list for video shoots, whether in the studio or remote. But the deal closer is the built-in recording capability of each transmitter. Pop a micro-SD card into a transmitter, push the record button, and now the audio is recorded to the internal card as well as being sent wirelessly to the 2-channel receiver and whatever camera, phone, tablet, laptop or digital audio recorder you choose to connect it to. On the micro-SD card, a very high quality WAV file is created. While this is pitched as a backup, or redundancy, copy of what you are recording elsewhere, the quality of this WAV file is likely to be noticeably superior to whatever you will get on a DSLR or mirrorless camera. And syncing audio tracks is easily done in post, if you are editing at all. So you may want to use the audio from the micro-SD card as your main recording and the camera audio as the backup. I’ve not been able to clip the WAV files, though I’ve tried, and they have proven to produce an excellent S/N ratio, despite there being no input level control.
Nearly as high on my list of features that make the Virso M2 my new “go to” is the ability to record mono plus a “safe” track, 6dB down in level from the primary audio track. That is a practice I began employing when using Panasonic MII video recorders for broadcast 30 years ago.
I’ve been happy with the audio quality of both the transmitter’s internal microphone and the supplied lav. They do not sound perfectly identical, but different mic placement of either can make bigger differences, true of all body-worn mics.
The transmitters are small, though not as tiny as some I’ve used. But having the recorder built in makes me a very forgiving guy. Also, YouTube videos have made video viewers very used to seeing similar-sized mic/transmitter combos on camera. Each transmitter weighs practically nothing, which is great when attaching one to clothing. Some might equate the light weight of the plastic transmitter body with a tendency to break if dropped. My experience, though, has been that a product this light collides with the earth with far less impact and momentum, resulting in less chance of damage.
Level controls for each channel are located at the receiver. My instinct would tell me that distortion and noise should be lower if the signal was controlled at the transmitter, but I am totally impressed with both aspects of the audio, and I like keeping that control out of the hands of the “talent.”
The Virso M2 incorporates a “noise reduction” feature that can be switched in or out. This feature is becoming increasingly common in this type of system. While it sounds to me like a gating feature with a fast attack time, I suspect it might be more sophisticated, and may be, to some degree, differentiating between characteristics of voice vs background sounds other than just amplitude. It works well enough for many applications, but for more demanding ones, better performance is pretty easily accomplished by leaving it off and attenuating ambient noise in post production.
A non-performance feature that I greatly appreciate is the ability to invert the digital display on the receiver. Depending upon how you need to position the receiver, this can eliminate a significant annoyance.
While the intended application of the Virso M2, as a dual-channel wireless omni lav system, is performed even better than I would expect for a system anywhere near this price point, I have put the M2 to work in yet another application. I often prefer a directional boom mic over the talent, just out of frame rather than using an omni lav. The small size and light weight of the M2 transmitter makes it easy to attach one near the end of a fishpole boom and plug a directional mic into it, giving my audio boom operator great mobility, with no concern over cables getting in the way.
While the Virso M2 has rapidly become my favorite affordable wireless lav system, it is not without a little room for improvement. First, the “dead cat” fuzzy windscreen for the transmitter’s integral microphone clips in place, but not as securely as I’d wish. It would be way too easy for it to get knocked off and lost. I was also not crazy about the fact that the foam windscreens for the plug-in lavs are not removable. Well, you could remove the foam, but it is glued on, so would not stay on again unless glued back in place. I understand that these little screens are easily lost when they just slide on, but there are many times when I prefer to use the lav without the foam, particularly inside or under clothing, where the foam rubbing against fabric creates unwanted handling noise.
But my bigger complaint is the ease of accidentally bumping and activating the transmitters’ mute and record buttons. I think this might be correctable in a future release with a firmware update that would require multiple or lengthy button depression, or some such trick, to make it a more intentional action. In the meantime, caution is advised.
On balance, even with those negatives, I have to give the Godox Virso V2 a score of approximately 4.873 stars, which I’m rounding up to 5 stars! Once again, Godox didn’t disappoint!
