The BP4025 from Audio-Technica provides two pristine, well-balanced channels of audio in a small, convenient package that practically mixes itself.

FOR: Painless stereo recording of instruments, voices and live sound environments. BP4025 is lightweight, phantom-powered, and mountable to a video camera, which makes it ideal for home videos, documentary and even film. The fixed X/Y position of the capsules provides a way to define the space around a signal and the room using only panning. You can’t get into phase trouble moving the “two mics” apart to capture both a wide stereo image and a lot of room reflections.

NOT FOR: Recording geeks who like to tweak the positioning of paired mics. This is the only practical limitation.