Microphone for Youtube Recording


Hello,
I have been trying to research this a little but not finding what I need so far.
What kind of microphone should be used if I am say reviewing my system for YouTube and I play a few tracks and want the best possible sound to come through to the end user, so that they can get a feel for the quality of the system?
I realize you cannot fully realize the quality of a system through Youtube but i am referring to something better then the Mic on a cell phone or my DSLR.
I have seen some Mic's that are referred to as Shotgun Mic's, would those pick up in Stereo?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jay


128x128jay73
First go watch some of the YouTube videos. There are two main approaches. The best one is to skip the mic and record direct from line. That might sound like a cheat but there's a whole series of these that are nothing but a video of a turntable and you listen to the actual line feed. Pretty easy to hear how much better it sounds than a CD, listening to a few of these even helped me pick my Koetsu cartridge and Herron phono stage. 

The other technique, recording with a mic, seems better but is awful. No room acoustics with any mic sounds anything but like you're in a barrel or something. Check out the Synergistic Research videos where they do this. They are GREAT for the comparisons Ted does. You can easily hear the difference between the system with and without their components. But while you hear the difference, what you hear doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the line feed videos.

So listen and see what I'm talking about. While you are at it maybe notice the mic setup Ted uses. He may even describe it in one of them. But realize recording like that if you want it to sound good is an art in itself. Which mic you use is the least of your worries.
Or you can use the technique used to record guitar amps. Put a Shure SM57 in front of your speaker, so 2 SM57, 2 stands, a field mixer, do the mix and equalization through uncoloured headphones and feed the camcorder/camera. You should be pretty close... :) The SM57 are cardioid mics with great response but this is not the only ones. After that you will have to suffer the YouTube compression that will ruin part of your hard work. So I don't think you can demonstrate anything this way.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I am going to look into these options and do some more research.
I have a new Integrated Amp arriving tomorrow and might want to do a review on it.