Test Out the Best Batteries!

  Test Out the Best Batteries!

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SHOWDOWN: Best AA Battery – the Results Will Shock You!

If you’re like us, you go through a LOT of AA batteries in a year. After seeing several “the best AA battery” videos testing duration or best overall value, we thought we’d create a best AA battery article ourselves – and ultimately a showdown – between all the AA battery choices on Amazon and skew the results specifically for we independent media creators with respect to Wireless Transmitter and Receiver use. We were reasonably sure we knew what the results would be, but what we discovered shocked us – and has totally changed how our battery purchases will go for the foreseeable future. Read on.

At Cinema Sound – and at many of the studios we work with – the Duracell ProCell batteries are the de-facto standard. Believed to be the “longest lasting” and “best value” AA battery, we’ve been buying them by the hundreds for years. We decided to test them against as many brands as we could find which:

• Were available on Amazon.com for retail purchase (and didn’t have to wait a month to ship from China)
• Were AA size
• Could be purchased in packs larger than 8
• Were either Alkaline, Lithium, or Zinc derivatives
• Were not rechargeable

We chose these parameters because:

• Amazon typically will have the best retail price, and shipping is usually free. If shipping was not free, we added that price to the recorded price for the battery.
• Since nearly all professional-grade wireless TX/RX devices use AAs, we chose to stay with that size.
• A battery is generally more expensive if purchased in small packs (sometimes more than 300% more expensive) than in larger packs.
• Although there are many kinds of batteries, several are potentially harmful to equipment, and only the three above are readily available for retail.
• And lastly, we HATE rechargeable batteries, because they are always more expensive, always have less of a charge, require a secondary expensive purchase of a charger, and lose charge with each recharge – not to mention the time and lost value of having to recharge them.