Comments by "ke6gwf - Ben Blackburn" (@ke6gwf) on "Which AA Battery is Best? Can Amazon Basics beat Energizer? Let's find out!" video.

  1. As a tech director at a large church with lots of mission critical wireless microphones, I recommend sticking with Duracell for reliability and consistency. I almost never have had problems with them, unlike Energizer. Plus they are cheap at Costco.
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  2. Do a test including rechargeable, and use the Ansmann 2850 cells, and compare them against the best of the alkaline! I have been a tech director at a large church for many years, as well doing various special events, and experimented with everything from zinc carbon, to lithium, to all the alkaline brands, and after settling on Duracell alkaline for being the most predictable and reliable (having a microphone die in the middle of a speech from a presidential candidate is just not acceptable! And I have had problems with Energizer not being stable and reliable between batches, but never with Duracell. Which I used for that speech, so it went fine lol) But then I read an article from an even more experienced tech director who had run the tests on rechargeables, which have never been reliable or long lasting enough for a live stage environment in high drain microphones, and he found the Ansmann, and had converted his entire battery stock to them. I got a few and tested them myself for a few months, and then got enough for all my applications (I had 60 in their chargers at the end of every event), and after several years, I only had a couple fail, and they performed better than the Duracell, reliably, and cheaper in the long run. There are 2 styles, regular and slim. The regular are slightly larger than alkaline and so are a tight fit in certain devices, so I mostly used the slim, but most devices will fit either. This is where I got the batteries and chargers from, and I have been happy with them, but you may be able to find them elsewhere as well. I have no affiliation with anyone, just a very happy user! https://horizonbattery.com/collections/aa-rechargeable-batteries-high-capacity/products/ansmann-aa-2850-mah-slimline-4pk These are designed to be left on a charger/maintainer all the time, taken off to be used, and returned to the charger. They don't hold the charge as long, because they are designed for maximum capacity. They also have the Max E low discharge batteries which have like 30 times lower self discharge, but also lower capacity, but are great for remote controls toys, etc. And remember that the faster you charge a battery, the faster it will fail because of the higher internal temperatures. So get a good trickle charger/maintainer, and only fast charge if you aren't able to have enough batteries to slow charge, maybe a photographer using them in flashes or something.
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