My recent forays into cello playing convinced me to buy a new gaming microphone. A few years ago, I snagged a Blue Yeti USB for ~$20, but that great deal is nowhere to be found in the Kang residence. (Believe me, I’ve looked.) A quick round of research, narrowed down my choices to:
HyperX Quadcast vs AT2020 vs Blue Yeti Pro vs Samson Q2U.
In the end, I went for the Samson Q2U because it was the cheapest. The fact that it is a dynamic mic was taken as a bonus. My hope was that I could use it for work meetings and leave my computer unmuted the entire time thanks to the directional noise cancelling.
The mic arrived on Monday.
Out of the box, my hopes and expectations were quickly crushed. Dynamic microphones need to be 1” to 4” from the source, otherwise they run too soft. If I were to use it as a desktop mic for work, I’d need to lean forward every time I talked. With my kneeling chair, that’s a major annoyance.
It recorded my piano playing and cello playing just fine, but to my lousy ears, there wasn’t that big of a difference from the MacBook’s built-in. In the end, I decided to keep it. It works for recording cello (aka my primary reason for buying). Plus, my gamer friends Patrick and Justin both have one. If it serves their non-music needs, I should be able to find plenty of tasks for the Q2U to do.
PS: Patrick mounts his on a microphone arm and mostly uses it for work meetings
