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A bit earlier this year I took the plunge and changed over from the Sony PCM-M10 to the PCM-D100 for my natural soundscape recording - but immediately was frustrated by the extreme, insane, wind-sensitivity of the latter model's microphones - all the more galling because of the supremely, breathtakingly, wide, sharply focused and lifelike soundstage that those mics produce in the wide stereo configuration. I found that even with the best furry windshields I could turn up (still nothing was better than the original version of the Rode Deadkitten), I could get useful recordings only if conditions were nearly calm. A light breeze was too much, unless perhaps it was force 1 Bft (and one had some shelter from that!). Pretty useless altogether for natural soundscape recording! I was really getting close to screaming / hair-tearing point about this.

To my great relief I have now come up with a workable solution, which I recommend to all who want to use that excellent recorder with a genuinely useful degree of wind protection.

I am now using two windshields for each recorder - a furry over a non-furry.

The base layer, then, is the Movo WST-R30 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B012Y85YME/) of the correct size for the D100 (and D50 and similar-size recorders). This windshield, which is actually seriously inadequate on its own, serves a particularly useful function in maintaining a reasonable still air space in front of the mics even when in wide stereo (120-degrees) configuration.

The outer layer is a furry windshield from Windcut (http://windcut.co.uk/), custom-made to fit over the Movo non-furry. Windcut make particularly effective furry windshields (I didn't know of them when I wrote my comparative review of windshields a few years ago), and, despite superior performance their furries are much cheaper than equivalents from big-name sources such as Rycote or Rode. This particular combination shows up on my comparative fan test to give me at least as good performance in the wind as I got with the PCM-M10 wearing a Rode DeadKitten (original version, which is better performing than the current, black version).

At last I'll now be able to record usefully in a reasonable range of light breeze situations.

Thank you for this article, finally i can start making sense of my PCM D-100 outside closed rooms

Hi Philip,

I’m facing exactly the same problem as you with my PCM-D100. It’s mostly unusable for the moment as soon as there is more than a very little wind, despite the Rode windscreen I got for it. For ten minutes I thought I got a solution by reading your post here, but then I read your review on amazon...

Have you found any solution yet? Once there was the Windcutter http://tamasdragon.com/2012/04/18/handheld-recorder-accessory-tips-1/ but now they are out of business with nothing left to sell all over the web.

Would it in your opinion be an idea to get something similar custom made by Windcut windshields UK?

It’s a pity: this little Sony would be so much more portable then my KM 184 ORTF setup with an all over very competitive sound quality, but as long as I can’t find a good windscreen it mostly stays at home.

Regards,
Tom