July 20, 1999 - 13:58
I keep a set of those multi-hinged foldup Sony VITE (vertical in the ear) headphones in my camera bag.
They take up very little space, they allow you to hear surrounding sounds to a certain extent and give you great confidence that all's in order on the mic front.
They're invisible enough to not label you a "professional" and are indispensible when you're using an external mic. My Sony TRV900 is very fussy over the shape of the mini stereo plug that connects up an external mic; if it's not a Sony plug it's quite possible that your internal mics aren't being disconnected , and headphone monitoring will quickly tell you this.
tom.