The Zoom iQ7 is a microphone attachment designed to enhance your audio recording experience. Whether you’re a content creator, music player, journalist, or simply want to capture quality audio, the iQ7 has you covered.
Outstanding Audio Quality
The iQ7 packs a punch when it comes to audio quality. It captures clear and crisp sound, making your recordings sound professional and clean. Here’s why it stands out:
- High-Resolution Recording: The iQ7 supports up to 24-bit/96kHz audio, making your recordings rich.
- Two-Channel Recording: With adjustable XY stereo mics, it captures audio from two directions, creating immersive soundscapes.
- Low-Noise Preamps: The built-in preamps reduce extra noise, delivering clean, distortion-free recordings.
Versatile and User-Friendly
This microphone attachment is a breeze to use, making it perfect for beginners and professionals alike. Here’s why you’ll love it:
- Plug and Play: No complex setups. Just plug the iQ7 into your iOS device’s Lightning port, and you’re ready to record.
- Rotating Microphone Capsules: Easily switch angles between 90 and 120 degrees for precise audio capture.
- Intuitive Controls: Adjust gain and monitor audio levels with the user-friendly control knobs.
Wide Compatibility
The iQ7 is designed to work easily with your iOS devices, including iPhones and iPads. This means you can record on the go, wherever inspiration strikes.
Pros of the Zoom iQ7
- Outstanding audio quality with high-resolution recording and low-noise preamps.
- Versatile and clear design for beginners and professionals.
- Wide compatibility with iOS devices.
- Adjustable capsules for precise audio capture.
- Portable and light, ideal for recording on the go.
Cons of the Zoom iQ7
- Compatible with iOS devices only.
- The Lightning connector might not fit well with some protective phone cases.
Mapa –
The sound is very good for a phone mic. Remember to put your phone on airplane mode. I forgot to, and got an awful noise on top of a classical concert I recorded.The mic is made of plastic. Hope it lasts.
Sam –
People complain about random static noise, you must put you phone an airplane mode, that will solve all issues
Chris –
Plugged it in and nothing happened. Had to download and install the companion app from Zoom and have it recognize the mic. Also using Zoom (video app) the mic did not sound any better until I turned on ‘use original sound’ which turns off Zoom’s app auto compression.With IOS camera videos the sound is great, with facetime and YouTube the sound is great. With ZOOM I do not notice as much of a difference.Also it is necessary to make sure you have the capsules oriented correctly to your source, and the gain needs to be set it doesn’t clip.
teejay –
I will update this review after this weekend when I get to really test it out.But so far, I like it, with a few qualifiers:The Good:the sound is great. I’ve had some older Zoom model recorders, and they’ve generally had great sound. As the mic is the most important part for that, this appears to be no different.This is more convenient than a regular recorder however since you can record with it and immediately email the file out to the cloud or a computer. This outweighs the negatives, which I will now elaborate on.The Bad:1st. The biggest negative IMO is that it’s not terribly well designed for attaching onto an iphone 7, or any i-device for that matter. the entirety of the mount is strictly the lighting port itself. given that this is a stress point, i don’t know how long this is going to last in the long run. you would think they would have accounted for this somehow but nope. This also means there’s no real good way to mount the device in a mic stand or anything.Also, forget having your phone in any kind of a case and attaching this thing. it won’t attach tightly enough (if at all) if there’s any kind of case around the connection. Poor physical design overall, IMO. The best possible solution would probably be getting an extension cord or something, but then you have the mic head piece just dangling off the end. meh.2nd. The software is problematic. it’s not *terrible*, all the basic functions work, BUT it’s buggy:For example, i had bluetooth headphones running when i plugged this thing in. recording worked fine, but when it would go back to playback there was silence. it seemed to me that it wanted to play out of the headphone jack attached to the iq6, not the iphone. when i unplugged the iq6 it would ONLY play out of the iphone’s speaker, so if i wanted to playback the audio, i’d probably need to either plug in a speaker to the audio jack, or email it to my cloud and play it from there. Overall this is pretty annoying. i guess the alternative is using a conventional recorder which would involve jacking the recorder into my computer, which is far less convenient, but the whole point was to take advantage of the software and i wasn’t impressed.so: forget wireless speakers for monitoring. forget *monitoring* unless you plug into the zoom’s headphone out jack.
Osmodious –
I have made two recordings at two different concerts, and the sound quality is pretty impressive. Mic placement is critical, though…try to have an unobstructed ‘view’ of the PA or musicians (if acoustic). The rock concert I held the mic toward my lap using an extension cable and the sound was quite muffled and dead sounding. The other was a symphony orchestra, with the mic/phone left on the railing in front of me with a clear shot to the musicians, and the sound was far better, though ultimately still a little muted. Those saying it is the same as the Zoom recorder must not have used one of those, as I have and can say that it is quite up to that standard (part of that may be the iPhone DAC, will have to test playing the recorded file on my computer with the pro-level DAC in my hi-if system. Anyway, it is way better than the built-in mic (which is surprisingly not-awful) in terms of quality. It does, however, make the phone a bit unwieldy…adding a couple of inches in length and quite a bit of girth to your phone (not to mention it is twice as thick as the phone, so sticks out in all directions as a consequence. Directionality is also challenging…which mic is ‘left’ and which is ‘right’? No idea. Do you compromise sound quality a lot holding the phone vertical, or does it have to stay horizontal (which is a rather unnatural way to hold a phone, not to mention you can’t just leave it in your pocket to leave your hands free.The software they have you download is…decent. There are a bunch of options, none of which are explained at all. Navigation isn’t terrible, but not great either. The two biggest issues are 1) you cannot listen over Bluetooth, only the built in (pathetic) speaker or connecting through the headphone port and 2) getting your files off the phone is a bit challenging.So, 5 stars for sound quality and 3 stars for ergonomics…resulting in 4 stars.
Scott Thornton –
This is really nice. doesn’t fit a lot of phone skins thoughI was really surprised after spending $140 that I still had to spend another $2.99 for the pro app…. really? but whatever… the app is good, the hardware fits my phone with the skin removed (yes even with the black spacer thing removed)
Frank Bergdoll –
Great audio – interface needs an adapterThis is great quality audio and very useful and handy. Even with the included spacer – I did have to get an adapter to extend the lightening port. This is to allow connection to my phone which is in a thicker case.However, this is a minor inconvenience- the audio is the goal – and that is great
Rod –
It’s alrightIt feels like a toy, the recording quality is just ok in my opinion. I still prefer my Zoom H4N Pro.
Aasif –
The product is easy to use and i have a median reviewThe product is good no doubt. The product has some limitations like the no control on the volume of the output into the monitoring headphones that’s a big issueOften blaring sounds noise comes into the headphones nad its terrible –I wanted to return the product as it has hurt my ears much time while recording due to no control on the volume on the output.The Sell should include a Lightning cable extender (male to female to support this product for ease of use with all iPhones — without that it’s a bit cumbersome for my use when I need it closer to the mouth for low volume singing. I purchased a few cables male to female lightening ones they all are not good to hold the connection they often lose the connection with the male pin on the iQ7
Gustavo Moreno –
NOT BADSound is slightly better than a iPhone 7 or plus, specially at loud volumes like drums, it records decently and without distortion.Disappointed that, all the recording application settings, work only for audio but not for video.