I once thought it was pointless to record my system using my phone’s video camera, but I’ve come to do it as habit after a friend suggested it.
Although the fidelity of the recording isn’t true to life, the recording is very good at highlighting differences. I’m able to hear in the recording that different HDMI cables sound different.
A few tricks I’ve learned a long the way:
- Find a position to hold the phone and always hold it that way. I stand the phone upright, so it sums up the sounds into a center channel. I find this emphasizes differences more than if I had to discern stereo in landscape. It also prevents the phone from doing odd noise cancellation between the channels.
- I hold the phone as to not obscure the mics on top/bottom. I cross my leg and rest my wrist on my knee, holding the phone up two inches above my knee.
- I have a set list where I record the first minute of each song.
- I try to use the same headphone while listening. If I switch, I’ll listen to an original reference recording before listening to a recent one.
- I level match by ear, but try to keep playback around 75dB.
- I write down the key components or changes in the videos metadata.
Do you record your changes?
Edit: Added #6 and samples