In this YouTube review, the creator unboxes and evaluates the Fifine AmpliTank K688 podcast microphone, highlighting its dual XLR and USB‑C connectivity, built‑in headphone jack with monitoring, gain knob, and touch‑sensitive mute button (which only works via USB). The mic arrives in a soft‑finish white (also available in pink and black) with a metal‑aluminum body, shock mount, and a sturdy USB‑C to USB‑A cable. Priced around $75 on Amazon, the reviewer claims the audio quality far exceeds its cost, sounding clearer than the $120‑$150 Samson Q9U and approaching the character of a $400‑$500 Shure SM7B, though not identical. A side‑by‑side sound test is performed, and the reviewer notes minor drawbacks: the mute button is non‑functional when using XLR, and occasional headphone jack issues. Overall, the K688 is recommended as a strong budget option for first‑time podcasters and content creators. The video also includes affiliate links, a plug for the creator’s Friday masterclasses and free Insiders Facebook group, and a call‑to‑action for comments, subscriptions, and future gear review suggestions.
Chapters
Hey y'all, today I found probably the best budget podcast microphone that you could possibly buy on Amazon, on any place that you buy microphones. And it's the Fifine AmpliTank K688 podcast microphone. Now, they were kind enough to reach out and they wanted me to do a review video on it. And these are my 100% honest thoughts. I've been using it for a few weeks now doing my livestreams. Doing some YouTube videos with it, and it has been incredible. So whenever you first open the box, you can see it's XLR and USB, which is a huge deal, especially whenever it comes to making content in general. So whenever you open it up, you get your user's guide. Uh, make sure to read that. Nicely secured in this foam, you get the actual microphone. Now I chose the white microphone because I just think it looks clean. It's a nice soft finish on the top part. It's like a almost velvety feeling. Uh, the body itself is made out of a— it's kind of like an aluminum. It's a metal feel. It comes on a shock mount as soon as you get it out of the box. And so a couple things to note: whenever you look at the bottom, there's going to be a couple different options here. So you got your headphone jack, which you can use to monitor your audio, uh, and you can turn it up and down. We'll do a test here in a second. Uh, you can also choose— I guess it's a gain knob because you can choose the signal of the output that you're sending either to your XLR or your USB-C inputs. Now the XLR and USB inputs is really, like, if you don't have this in your microphones nowadays, the odds of somebody buying it is going to be way lower. And so in this case, I can use it for live streams, and I can also use it with a normal XLR cable just like the one I'm using. And right now you're listening to the Samson Q9U, and we'll do a comparison here in a second. But I can plug it in XLR, or I can plug it in via USB-C, and it picks it up on your computer. As a normal audio input source. So that is super awesome. It comes with a little adapter here that you can screw into pretty much whatever mic stand that you could possibly want. It comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable. It's a really solid cable. Now on Amazon, I just checked the pricing and it's about $75 brand new. And the quality of audio that you get out of this thing, it does not sound like $75. Let's just say that it sounds significantly nicer. Now, does it sound like the Shure SM7B? Maybe not quite, but those are about $500, $400 if you can find them used. And these microphones here, these Fifine microphones, everything Fifine that I've used, has been great quality at a great price. So if you're looking to buy your first microphone, this is definitely a good option to check out. Let's go ahead and switch microphones and do a quick sound test on this guy. All right. I put the Fifine K688 microphone onto the mic stand here in our podcast studio. Now, we usually have, like I said, the Samsung Q9U microphones. I think those range around $120 to $150 depending on which one you get. Now this is plugged in via XLR directly into the camera. Whenever you're plugged in USB-C, there's this little button on here that I forgot to mention a while ago. It's a mute button and it's touch sensitive, so all you got to do is touch it. Now we're plugged in XLR, so I can't show it to you right now, but this microphone comes in, I believe, 3 different colors. There's a pink color, a white color, and a black color. So whatever vibe you're going for, there's probably an option that you can choose. I've been working with microphones like this for the last 3 years for my own channel and for our clients' channels. And this thing honestly performs just about the same as all the other microphones that we've used, if not better. I've heard people say within my testing that it actually sounds clearer than some of the other microphones. So that's something to note. As well. One thing that I wish they would have done a little bit better, this touch function with it not working via XLR. We've also had a couple issues with the headphones. Those are things that can be fixed, and it may be my specific one, but I'm all about giving complete and honest reviews here on this channel. So if that happens to you, it happened to me too. Again, thanks Fifine for sending me this microphone. I will definitely be using it more in the future and on my YouTube videos and livestreams and masterclasses that I do actually every Friday on our Insiders group. It's a Facebook group. It's free. You get to come and learn all things about media, social media, how to grow your brand online. It's just a tool that we use in order to teach business owners, to teach creatives how to utilize these tools and these platforms to grow your online audience and your brand. I hope this helped you out today in making your decision about your next budget microphone. If there's something else you'd like me to review or go over and test out, let me know in the comments below. I'm also going to be leaving an Amazon link down in the description below. It helps support the channel. If you click the link and buy through there, we get a small cut. If you want to go buy this microphone, make sure to use the link. Make sure to hit the subscribe button if this helped you out and comment down below what else you want me to review, test, or go over. I'm always looking for new gear to talk about on this channel. So thanks for watching and we'll see you guys in the next one.
