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Podcasting Gear Guide

I’ve been asked a few times about my podcasting setup. Since I have done a significant amount of research on podcasting and podcasting equipment, I’ll share that with you here.

Microphones

All podcasters must have a microphone! You could use the one built into your smart phone if you wanted to be really cheap, but ideally you will buy a quality microphone.

The main thing you must decide when buying a microphone is whether you want a dynamic mic or a condenser mic. Dynamic mics pick up only the sound that is directly in front of them, while condenser mics pick up sound in all directions. For the average hobbyist, I strongly recommend a dynamic mic.

What I use: The ATR-2100

The ATR-2100 is a high-quality dynamic microphone that can take either a USB input or an XLR input. The XLR option is important because it allows you to plug it into high-quality recording equipment! Even if you plan on just recording through your PC at first, the XLR input will give you options later.

Since it’s a dynamic mic, it only picks up what’s in front of it. My apartment isn’t a sound studio, but you wouldn’t know it listening to the podcast. Throw one of these babies on it and you’re set.

Some other options:

The Blue Yeti

The Blue Yeti is very popular among podcasters. It’s a USB condenser mic with very high quality audio.

Since it picks up sound in all directions, you need a very quiet place to record. Also, it only has a USB input, so you’re restricted to recording through your PC.

This package on Amazon includes a Blue Yeti along with recording headphones and a pop filter. Not a bad deal for the beginning podcaster!

Headsets

If you’re looking to be really cheap, you could fold your headphone and mic purchases into one by buying a headset. You could get a cheap one like the Sennheiser PC 8, or a more expensive one like the Plantronics Audio 995. Fair warning, no headset will get you the sound quality of a standalone mic.

Headphones

Ideally, you’ll be listening to your audio as you record it so you can notice and fix any problem on the fly. If your headphones allow sound to leak out into your mic, you could be in for some seriously annoying feedback! Also, you want to be able to listen to your podcast in the highest possible quality while editing. That’s why you want some quality, over-the-ear headphones.

What I use: Sennheiser HD 280 Pro Headphones

The Sennheiser HD 280 Pro is an awesome set of headphones! These block out all outside sound, offer great quality audio, and they’re much cheaper now than they were when I bought them!

The key with recording headphones is to get something that gives you an accurate representation of what you’re listening to. Avoid Beats by Dre, they artificially boost the bass to make music sound better. That means you’ll be hearing something different than your audience, always a bad thing while recording and editing!

Some other options:

Sennheiser offers a cheaper option in the HD 202. Alternatively, you could go with a mid-price option like the ATH-M20x.

Digital Audio Recorders

Computers crash. It’s a sad fact of life. If you record enough podcast episodes through your computer, eventually the software will fail and you’ll lose a whole episode.

A digital audio recorder does one thing: it records sound. It won’t crash on you the way a computer will, because it literally has only one job to do. That’s the primary advantage of recording into a digital audio recorder.

The secondary advantage is that unlike a computer, a digital audio recorder doesn’t have a fan that can turn on and wreck your otherwise-quiet recording area.

What I use: The Zoom H4n (old model)

I use a (now slightly outdated) Zoom H4n. Remember how I went on about the ATR-2100‘s XLR output earlier? This is what I plug that into. It has two high-quality condenser mics at the top, which I don’t use. However, I can imagine them coming in handy if I was, say, recording a live interview and wanted to get audience reactions and questions. Just point them in the general direction of the audience and go.

The really nice thing about this is the dual XLR/TRS jacks at the bottom. I plug my mic into the right channel and my phone into the left channel using a 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter cable like this one.

That allow me to record myself and my guest onto separate channels. This saves me major headaches in editing! You have no idea how often one person is making a great point just as the other person coughs loudly into his mic. Because I record on separate channels, I can mute the cough. It’s great!

The NEW Zoom H4n Pro

They made a new edition of the Zoom H4n and it looks slick! I haven’t used it, but it’s the same price as the old one, and Zoom claims it has been improved in every way! Wow!

The main weakness of the H4n I have is weak pre-amps. The new H4n is said to have fixed this problem.

Some other options:

The Zoom H4n is great for my setup, but what if you want something different? For instance, what if you want to plug four ATR-2100s into one recorder and have a four-person panel discussion?

Although the H4n says it’s a four-track recorder, it only has two of those dual XLR/TRS jacks I plug my mic and phone into. The other two tracks can only come in through those built-in condenser mics.

The Zoom H5

That’s where the Zoom H5 comes in. It’s very similar to the H4n, except that those condenser mics at the top can be switched out for any of a number of alternative inputs. In particular, you can get this Zoom EXH-6 Dual XLR/TRS Capsule that adds an additional two XLR/TRS to the top, just like the bottom ones. If I ever wanted to start a podcast with four people in the same room, that is what I would buy.

The H5 also has improved pre-amps over the (old) H4n. That means better quality audio.

The Zoom H6

Now we’re getting excessive. The Zoom H6 can do everything the H5 can, but it has two more XLR/TRS inputs. If you want to record five or six people, the H6 is for you. It also offers you the ability to edit audio, but I can’t see why you wouldn’t just do that on your computer.

Conclusion

And you’re set! With a mic, headphones, and a recorder, you can start recording your podcast. Some people add fancy things like mixers and extra pre-amps to their setup, but those things aren’t necessary to making a great podcast with great audio.

[Disclaimer: The links in this article are affiliate links! If you buy through them, I get money.]

The post Podcasting Gear Guide appeared first on The Economics Detective.

A Basic Income Guarantee Can Work if it Replaces State Education and Medicine

Classical liberals like Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek have supported the idea of a basic income guarantee as an improvement on the current patchwork of welfare programs. The welfare systems in most countries are the product of a century of piecemeal reforms, where politicians have created many overlapping programs targeting different problems and interest groups. This makes perfect sense from the politicians’ perspective; creating a new program allows one to attach one’s name to a high-profile bill, thus winning favorable media attention and votes. It’s the same reason governments often create shiny new highways rather than filling in the potholes on old ones. Where’s the glory in marginally improving something with someone else’s name on it?

As a result of this political process, welfare systems have dramatically higher administrative costs than they need to have. Rather than having separate (and often multiple!) bureaucracies to administer welfare programs for the homeless, the temporarily unemployed, seniors, disabled workers, single mothers, etc., why not fold them all into one? In fact, Milton Friedman’s negative income tax would fold them all into the agency responsible for administering taxes. Replacing a hundred parallel agencies with one agency tasked with administering a simpler system would clearly reduce overhead costs.

The other consequence of the patchwork welfare system is that it creates more severe unintended consequences than it needs to. All redistribution schemes affect incentives, but a basic income guarantee paired with a reasonable tax scheme (maybe a flat tax or a progressive consumption tax) would avoid the worst of the perverse incentives. Current welfare systems feature “welfare cliffs,” where many programs abruptly cut off at the same income level, leading to absurdly high implicit marginal tax rates. The examples I’ve seen have situations where earning $1,000 more income can make one ineligible for $10,000 in benefits from various programs. That’s an implicit marginal tax rate of 1000%, far higher than the tax rate paid by the highest of high earners!

An example of welfare cliffs for single mothers in Pennsylvania. (Source)

Since a basic income guarantee is a lump sum paid to all citizens, it doesn’t have this feature. Marginal tax rates still have to be positive to pay for it, but they would never be higher than 100%.

This all sounds great so far, but as David Henderson points out, the math doesn’t really check out. The way the basic income guarantee is typically sold implies that we could replace current welfare programs with a basic income guarantee and remain revenue neutral.

Here are some back-of-the-envelope calculations to show this wouldn’t work. I’ll look at the Canadian case because I live in Canada, but the results should be similar for other developed economies.

As of the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the Federal Government of Canada spent $72.2 billion on transfers to individuals (including old age security, employment insurance, childcare benefits, etc.). At a population of 35.5 million, that comes out to just over $2000 per person per year. Not enough to live on. I’ve heard proponents of the basic income use $10,000 per person per year as an estimate of how high the basic income would have to be, so calls for a basic income to replace other welfare transfers amount to calls to expand government transfers by a factor of five.

The Basic Income Guarantee Can Replace More Than Just Welfare

Canada and other countries can have a revenue-neutral basic income if we realize just how many government programs are thinly veiled redistribution schemes. The biggest examples are education and medical care.

I think if you ask the supporters of public education and public healthcare why they support these policies, it’s primarily because of equity concerns. What would poor people do if they couldn’t afford education or medicine?

Sometimes you hear efficiency arguments, but a lot of them sound more like ex post rationalizations of the status quo rather than serious justifications for public provision. If you can point to a market failure present in either the market for education or for medicine, that is not sufficient to justify public provision. You also have to show that there is no feasible policy that can fix that market failure without sacrificing the efficiency benefits of markets.

So, for instance, if you think education has positive spillover effects, that justifies at most a Pigouvian subsidy to schools.

For Canada, education and healthcare cost the government about $3000 and $6000 per person per year, respectively. So that’s enough to finance $9000 per person per year of a basic income guarantee. If we abolished public schools, public hospitals, and existing welfare programs, we could pay every single person $10,000 per year for their entire lives and still have money left over.

Ask yourself if you would rather have public education, public healthcare, and whatever transfers you currently receive from the government, or $10,000 every year for your entire life.

Yes, you would have to pay for school and health insurance yourself. But we would expect the prices of both those services to fall with market competition. I know what I would choose.

The post A Basic Income Guarantee Can Work if it Replaces State Education and Medicine appeared first on The Economics Detective.