These audio examples accompany our main 'Choosing & Using A USB Microphone' round-up article in SOS June 2020 issue. You will find it here:
www.soundonsound.com/reviews/choosing-using-usb-microphone
USB Mics — Audio Examples
Listen to the MP3 recordings in our SoundCloud player. Better still, for criticial comparison, you can download a ZIP file of hi–res WAV audio examples in the righthand Media sidebar of this article or use the link below.
Download | 14 MB
For these audio examples, I placed each USB microphone on my desk directly in front of me, using the stands they came with, while reading a short passage from an iMac screen behind the mic, in a fairly typical example of a home podcasting setup.
I tried to keep all the microphone capsules around the same distance from my mouth (10 inches), but the heights of the different stands meant that some were higher or lower than others. I also tried to keep each reading as consistent as possible, so hopefully the underlying sound of each mic should shine through.
Where the microphones offered different polar patterns or processing options, I disabled any compression, EQ or DSP, and used them in their cardioid modes.
Table: USB Mic Features
|
Model |
Price |
Direct Monitoring? |
iOS Compatible? |
Multi-pattern? |
|
AKG Lyra Box |
£139$149 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Apogee HypeMiC |
£349$349 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Beyerdynamic Fox |
£99$139 |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Blue Yeticaster |
£179$199 |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
|
Mackie EM-USB |
£127$149 |
No |
No |
No |
|
MXL Tempo |
£79$69 |
No |
No |
No |
|
Rode NT-USB Mini |
£99$150 |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Samson Satellite |
£105$99 |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Shure MV51 |
£189$199 |
Yes |
Yes |
No |