Podcast Microphones: What are the Best (And The Worst Ones, Too)

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Hey everyone, welcome back to Feed. You'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard, your host and today I am going to share with you some information that as a podcaster I think you'll be very interested in whether you're a new podcaster or considering starting one or you already are a podcaster. I've got a lot of valuable information here. I recently ordered many different microphones, I think about nine or 10 of them, bought them, have done unboxing of them, experiencing them just as any user would right out of the box, and then reviewed them and tested them. And so this is the podcast episode that's a companion to a lot of different little videos. I've done a separate unboxing video for each microphone and I did actually pretty comprehensive videos. I had three different cameras, two focused on the unboxing, one focused on me and, you know, from different angles. So there's some pretty dynamic unboxing videos. So you can really see the ins and the outs of each of these microphones. And I've got some detailed information to share with you here in this episode. And then no matter how you're experiencing this, and most of you, I'm sure, are listening to the podcast audio, but you're going to want to go to the blog post at FeedYourBrand Co, because within that blog post I've got different audio tracks of each different microphone recording the same audio. I basically said this is Tom Hazard of Feed your brand on the and then the name of the microphone so you can hear the raw recording quality of each of these microphones for yourself. Now, I'm going to give you my opinion on each of these microphones, but I'm also going to leave it up to you to be able to decide. Don't just take my word for it, but you can go and listen to each of these raw, unedited audio tracks and, you know, compare these different microphones side by side. Now, you might be wondering, how did I decide what microphones to purchase? Well, I purchased microphones in quite a range of prices. I decided I wanted to have something, you know, a few of them on the very low End of the price scale, in case you're a do it yourselfer or just a new podcaster and you're maybe starting on a budget, you don't want to spend, you know, a whole lot of money. You don't want to break the bank until you're sure, hey, you're going to stick with this podcasting thing. And, you know, a lot of the microphones as a result are USB microphones. Some of them are only USB microphones, meaning that's the only way you can use them is to connect them to a USB device. In most cases, that's going to be a computer. But then I also have some microphones that have the ability to connect via an XLR cable, which is sort of the more conventional way. Most microphones in the history of microphones have connected to other equipment, whether that's as simple as going to a digital audio recorder or it's going to a mixing board, if you really are getting into some advanced pre mixing, if you will, of audio before recording it. So I've got a range of those, but really I've got a good range of, you know, I think the most common, I think choices that people make in terms of microphones or the common ones people are considering when buying them and how do you know which one's any good? And you know what, I started podcasting five or six years ago now, and the choices that were available then are not the same as there was today. And I know I went and viewed other people's reviews of microphones back then to make my decision of what I bought at the time. And, you know, what, technology has changed and there are some new entrants in the market. And so I felt like, you know what, the choices available today are better and, you know, more broad than they were back then. And I think also some of the microphones that reviewers told me was the microphone you want to have I think are really not the best available anymore from my review now, and I'm going to share that with you. So I decided the only fair way to go through these microphones, in terms of which one do I talk about first, second, third, et cetera? The only way I could figure out to do it that made any sense that wasn't going to be somehow arbitrary or me sort of stacking the deck as to which microphone to talk about first and last, is to go in price order. So I decided I'm going to go start here in this episode with the least expensive microphone, regardless of whether it's USB or not, and go through based on price point. Now, you'll notice most of them are going to have USB capabilities, some do not, and some have both USB and XLR capability, meaning you could connect it to a computer or to another audio interface or mixing board or digital audio recorder. And some are only one or the other. So here we go.

The first in my review is the Shure PGA 48. This is the least expensive microphone that I thought was worth testing, and it retails. You can find it on Amazon, retailing for $39. It is a cardioid dynamic microphone, but it is an XLR cable connection only, meaning this is not a USB microphone. And I think that's actually part of why it's only $39 in reality. You know, in order to connect to a computer, you've got to have some more electronics in there, some different chip sets, and you've got to have software on the microphone that when it plugs into a USB on your Apple or your Windows computer, it's going to recognize it without having to install any drivers. So, you know, software is involved. So on this type of microphone, it's an XLR cable connection only, so it's a little less expensive. The other thing is it did not come in the box with a standard, so you're not paying for the incremental expense of a stand. It's meant to be held either in your hand or in a boom mount only. The other interesting thing about this microphone is that, you know, it's rather simple and there's not a lot to go wrong with it as a result. And also, I think it really is intended more for handheld use than, because it's the only one that I tested that has a tapered handle that sort of feels more natural holding it in your hand. And, you know, I think that's pretty common when you see a lot of microphones used on stage. And certainly they have little mounts at the top of a floor mounted stand. But that mount has to accept a tapered handle. And certainly there are adapters that will do that for a boom mount if you want to use that. I prefer a boom mount for any microphone that I use. And I'm speaking to you right now recording on one that's in a boom mount. And if you go look at any of the unboxing videos, you'll see my setup and how I do that. But if you're really on a budget and you don't want to spend a lot of money On a microphone, $39 is probably going to be your cheapest option. Although the caveat to that is because it's not a USB microphone, you've got to plug it into some other device in order to record. You're going to have to have some sort of an interface either to a digital audio recorder or to convert it to USB into a computer. And in most cases, that interface is actually going to raise the total price of all the equipment you need to buy in order to record to actually more than the least expensive USB microphone that I'm going to talk about in this review. So consider that, yes, it's technically a microphone for $39, but you're going to need more equipment that's going to cost you more in order to use it. So that's the sort of the trade off. You know, if you're just singing from stage and you have a band and you're not worried about recording, then hey, this kind of mic could be your cheapest option. At least that I found that was reasonable on Amazon and the sound quality I found to be, you know, decent. I think, you know, $39 is only going to get you so much, but for the money, I personally thought the sound quality was pretty decent for an XLR only microphone, meaning a non USB microphone. So again, go to the blog post at FeedYourBrand Co to listen to the audio track and you can hear for yourself. Moving on to the second microphone in my review, and that is the Samson Q2U. Now that's not to be confused with Samsung. It is not the same people that make televisions and cell phones. Samsung S A M S O N. Interesting name choice, you know, brand name choice. I think maybe they're trying to trick people into thinking that it is, you know, by Samsung and maybe trying to get people to think it's a better quality because of it. But that is not the case here. As purchased it was 59, 95 and they call it the Samsung Q2U podcasting pack. So here it's in a retail package that is definitely trying to market itself to podcasters. That's part of why I chose this one. It also is both a USB and an XLR capable microphone. So it has dual function. And I think that that's really important to understand because this microphone having that dual function being for podcasters, it really gives you all the options, the best of both worlds. In fact, I found it comes with a stand and it uses the same stand that I found in some of the other microphones I tested, like the Audio Technica microphones. Although the only difference is this stand had A little extender to raise the microphone higher up off the table, which I really do not think was a very helpful thing, because this particular stand is very lightweight. And the microphone, because it's got both XLR and USB capability, it's got a lot of electronics in it. And when you put it in the stand that's pretty tall, sitting on your desk or table, it makes the whole assembly very top heavy. And if you're anything like Tracy, and when you talk, you talk with your hands. And this is not a. I'm having a little fun with that. But, I mean, Tracy would say the same thing, too. She. She's a little Italian, and she talks with her hands a lot and often. And I'm going to do this intentionally here. Often she'll move her hands, and even with our boom mounts, she'll hit the mic like that as she's talking sometimes and drives our editors crazy. Sorry, guys. But, you know, if you're anything like that and you move your hands a lot when you talk recording a podcast, you may end up running into a problem knocking this one over a lot. So the extender on this stand that makes it taller is just threads together and you can remove it. Personally, I would recommend not using the extender if you're going to use that stand. But, hey, at least it comes with a standard. This is another cardioid dynamic microphone, which you're going to hear that technology a lot. Most of the microphones that I'm reviewing are cardioid dynamic microphones, which speaks to the quality of the electronics, the sensitivity, and the technology that it's using. Generally, that's a very good thing. So in the box, it comes with an XLR cord and a USB cord. Most of the microphones do. But listen carefully later on, because there's surprisingly some that don't come with cords. But even at 59.95, this comes with your USB cord. Your XLR cord has a volume control for a headphone jack that's built into the mic, and that's so you can listen to yourself and to a guest if you're hooked in USB through the computer, directly through the microphone. I do think that's a good way to listen. It sort of makes sure that your microphone's properly connected to your computer if you're hearing your guest listening through the microphone. So I tend to do that. It's got a nice weight to it. Pretty quality and quality microphone. The sound quality. I found the USB quality to be among the top qualities of any of the USB microphones in this review and the XLR quality was even better. And that's you're going to find that's a pretty common thing when you have a microphone plugged into the USB port of your computer and you're using software on your computer to record your voice. There are limitations in the USB interface of your computer and your voice that's recorded is only going to be so good. Is it perfectly acceptable to use USB recording for all your podcast episodes? Absolutely, I believe it is. You can get a fabulous recording of excellent quality that your listeners will be very happy with. But will it be the best possible recording quality? No, probably not. USB generally will not sound as good as if you recorded with an XLR cable to a digital audio recorder through some interface. And then of course the other option is you can go XLR through an interface into the computer and still record in the computer and might have a little bit different quality there. But anyway, very good quality microphone for only $59.95 comes with a lot of the different accessories that you need stand both your cords. And it also actually one distinction. It also came with a little windscreen, the little foam ball that goes over the top of the microphone. It's the only microphone that I tested that's of a USB capable microphone that came with that windscreen. That can save you some money on purchasing a pop filter because that actually provides a lot of the same function, even if that's not necessarily the primary intent of a windscreen. I tend to use a windscreen instead of a pop filter because it's less all in my face and in my line of sight for whatever I'm looking at. So, you know, overall a good value microphone. Something to consider and then don't forget, go check out the blog post, you can listen to the audio track. Now I'm going to talk about sort of a combination. I'm combining two different microphones from one manufacturer into this next section because they're essentially the same microphone. One's a retail version and one is a commercial version. There's a couple of differences in what comes in the box and a slight difference in price, but they're very similar microphones. The first one is called the ATR 2100. The AT is for audio Technica, who is the manufacturer, or I would say more the importer of this, which is a company I believe out of Massachusetts, although these are made in China and they import them. So the ATR 2100, the last time I checked the price on Amazon was 69.99. So a little bit just $10 more expensive than the last microphone I was talking about. And it has similarly, it's a cardioid dynamic microphone. It's silver in color. The retail packaging is very plasticky, as though it is meant to hang on one of those sort of hang on a rack in the aisles at like Target or Best Buy or something and has that little metal piece sticking out from the pegboard that you're going to hang these on. It's that type of packaging. The plastic packaging is kind of cheap. Maybe part of the reason why it's a little less expensive than the commercial version which is in a different kind of packaging. But in any case, the ATR2100 is a very good quality microphone, silver handle, retail packaging. It's got a headphone jack with volume control similar to the Samsung microphone. Also has the same stand as the Samsung microphone. I actually suspect the previous microphone and this one, both the AT microphones may be made in the same factory over in China, although they're not the exact same microphone. There are some differences, but enough similarities that I think they may be made at the same place. But the same stand as the Samsung but without the extender. Remember I mentioned that extender that raised it up higher and made it even more top heavy. Well, this stand doesn't have that extender. I still find this tabletop stand with the ATR2100 or the next one, the commercial version, to still be top heavy even if you use it without the extender. The good thing about that stand is it collapses and it's good for travel. But if I was going to use it every day, I probably wouldn't use that stand. I'd buy an aftermarket stand that had maybe a flat disc base, a little more weight to it so that if you hit it it's not going to fall over. But again, all in all, ATR2100 is very good quality. And then its companion, that's the commercial version at 2005. Now this is a microphone that I've actually purchased in bulk and stocked provided them to my done for you podcasting setup customers. I think it's a little more sophisticated looking with sort of a charcoal black finish instead of just the typical shiny silver that may look a little cheaper. Instead of a rounded very top ball of the mesh MIC like the ATR2100 has, this has kind of a flat top and it's really got a nice surface finish. Feels like a higher quality microphone. It's 79 99, so $10 more retail when you buy it also still has the headphone jack and volume control and it is a very high quality microphone. Now personally I think that both of these microphones, the commercial version at 2005 and the retail version ATR2100, so similar it's hard to distinguish the quality difference between the two of them. But I did still record separate recordings where you can listen to again that raw audio quality for each of these microphones side by side. And in this case I actually in the previous microphone and these two from Audio Technica, I've recorded two different audio tracks, one via USB and one to a digital audio recorder via xlr. So you can hear the difference in audio quality in recording from the two different kinds of cables and two different kinds of interfaces. You can use this microphone for so very good microphones. In fact, I have personally used the I started my podcasting career with the ATR 2100 these days and in fact I'm recording this episode on an at 2005. I tend to like that one a little better. That's my personal go to. But that doesn't mean you should buy it. It doesn't mean it's right for you. I really think everybody has different situations and different needs for a microphone and you need to find the one that's right for your situation. But oh, the other nice thing, I guess I should say that distinguishes the at 2005, besides its finish, its color and the shape of the very top that you speak into. But the packaging was a little nicer quality packaging. Not that that matters a whole heck of a lot. But it also does come with a little travel pouch for your cables and your stand. You could even fit the microphone into it if you want to. I tend to not do that because of the little foam windscreen that I put on my microphone. But I do store the cables and the stand in it makes it nice and easy to throw in your either computer bag or your suitcase when you're going to travel. So that's another nice little feature that this commercial version comes with and it's why I've stocked it and provided it to my customers as well. So definitely go to the blog post at FeedYourBrand Co and listen to the audio tracks of each of these and side by side compare them and see what you think.

So now we're climbing up in price just a little bit, getting to a microphone that I never purchased for myself to try out until this, you know, this whole series of microphones to review. But it's been a very popular microphone over the years, even before I started podcasting, and I still find it's pretty popular today. A lot of people buy it, I think because it has gotten a reputation as being a sort of default podcaster microphone. It is by a company called Blue and it's called the Blue Yeti. Very popular microphone. It is $99 on Amazon. There are some other colors available that are a little more expensive. I just purchased the standard blue Yeti silver version, which is the least expensive. There's a big difference in this microphone from a lot of the others, actually any of the others that I've discussed so far. And the big difference is it is a USB only microphone. You cannot connect this directly to a digital audio recorder, a mixing board, or any other kind of interface where you're combining multiple microphones. This is meant to be a single microphone used plugged into your computer via usb. And when I opened this out of the box, I actually was shocked at how incredibly heavy it it is. But when I looked at it more carefully and you can see this in the unboxing video, it's really all in the stand. It's really meant to be a tabletop microphone only. Although if you really want to unscrew, there's two thumb screws on either side of the stand that hold the microphone to the stand. And if you want to unscrew them and you have a boom mount in the right adapter, because it does take an adapter, meaning like a thread adapter, like a nut. You can mount this microphone on a boom mount if you want to, but that's really not what it's intended to do. And I think if you're going to use a microphone on a boom mount, there are better, less expensive ones that you can choose. Some of the ones I've already talked about would be good candidates. And the reason I say that is this stand is made of some incredibly thick and heavy steel. And I personally believe, and I have quite a bit of manufacturing background in my history and my career, most of the cost of this microphone is actually in that stand because of the material. It's like quarter inch thick steel that's bent. And just manipulating that material to create that stand takes a lot of money and a lot of labor. And it's where most of the cost is, in the stand. Now the good thing about that, if you want a USB only mic and you want a tabletop mount only, you could hit this thing with your hands and you're really not knocking it over. I mean, you'd have to Seriously, do something very intentional or accidental, I guess, to knock it over. It's not just gonna tip over easily. It is not at all top heavy. So that's, I think one of its, you know, I think really good points is that this base, which quite honestly, from a cost and a use perspective, is overbuilt. You know, that's maybe part of its style, part of its appeal, and part of what they're trying to market about it. But USB only. It's very large in diameter, so it's pretty big. So I would say all in all, this microphone, it's not very portable. So if you're going to go on the road, this is probably not one that you're really going to want to pack into your computer bag or your suitcase. Not only will it make it much heavier doing that, but it's bulky, it's going to take up a lot more space and just not ideal in that regard. So you can adjust the angle of the microphone in the stand with these two knobs on either side, which really go through the stand and into the microphone. So I would figure out the angle I want it to be at and tighten the threads and leave it there. But then it also does come with the USB cable. It kind of looks like, and I think is the same kind of USB cable that come with USB printers, where it's got that square connector on one end, then the, that goes in the microphone, and then the normal flat USB connector to go into your computer on the other end. And I think that's fine. I don't think that really matters from a capability perspective. But just to paint the mental picture, that's the kind of connector it has now, when I went and tested it, and again, I'm going to give you my opinion here, but go to the blog post, listen to the audio track and hear it for yourself. Because what I found when I recorded is that the audio quality of the Blue Yeti was actually the poorest of all the USB mics that I tested. So I was not very impressed with it. And I have to say I wasn't very surprised. I've spoken to other people and interviewed them over Zoom or Skype. And, you know, I've actually used one at an event I went to once and my impression was it was not the highest quality microphone, which kind of surprises me why it's so popular. But when I opened it out of the box, I could see, wow, they've created what is a pretty nice design of a microphone. And I think the stand. And when you hold the box, you feel the weight of it. You think that, hey, this must be a quality piece of equipment because it's so heavy. Unfortunately, I think that's an association a lot of us have, at least in the United States, that weight is, you know, equivalent to quality a lot of the time. But that really doesn't translate through to the audio quality. But you know what, go and listen to it for yourself and see what you think. Okay, now I'm moving on to another USB only microphone. This one's called the RODE Podcaster. So again, this is a microphone that is really marketing itself specifically to podcasters. RODE is R O D E. And I'll tell you, opening up the Rode Podcaster out of the box, I found the box quality to be excellent. It was really nice quality box outside and in. It all communicated quality. But when I picked up the microphone out of the box, and really there's not much in the box because this one doesn't come with a tabletop stand. It doesn't come with an XLR cable because it's a USB microphone only. So it only had a USB microphone, the USB cable, and then a small adapter for a boom mount, which is very lightweight. So there's not a lot of things in here yet. This box was really heavy. And when I picked it up, I actually said to myself, oh, my goodness, this thing is stinking heavy. And I couldn't believe how heavy it was. The metal casting that this microphone is built in is just darned heavy. And I'm like, why is this? And I was surprised again at the weight of it because I do not believe the weight adds any quality or functionality to its ability to record your voice. So I'm like, well, why would someone do that? And I think it's just appealing to what I think, at least in America, and I'm not going to speak for other countries because I don't know those cultures in this regard, but in America, we tend to regard things that are heavier by the pound are actually more valuable. And I don't think it's really true. And in this case, it's kind of ironic because this microphone is really not meant to be used on a tabletop stand, and you'd need a heck of a strong tabletop stand to keep it from falling over, because this microphone is more than three times the weight of. Of some of the others I've already talked about in this review. The Audio Technica microphones, the Samsung microphone, literally three times the weight at over 1 pound, 8 ounces for the microphone. So you definitely should go look at the unboxing video because when I mounted this to my boom mount, I mean, I had to really go and tighten up. They give you a couple different, you know, knobs to turn at some of the joints on your boom mount in order to sort of counterbalance the weight and make it so that when you put something, you know, ideally you get those knobs set properly, you can move your boom mount around, you can, you know, depending on where you're sitting or standing, you can stretch it out to where you are and it's going to stay there. It's got these spring loaded, you know, springs on the boom mount that counterbalance the weight of the microphone. Well, most boom mounts, that spring force on them does not have enough strength to balance the weight of this microphone. So that's one of the things I think is not so good about it, quite honestly. You've got to tighten those joints so tight that instead of the spring force holding up the microphone, it's just the fact that you've tightened these joints so that it'll hold it. But if you're going to move it and move that microphone back and forth from a use position to a storage position pretty often, which is how I use mine on a daily basis. I mean, I'm recording and or using zoom. Whether I'm having a business meeting or recording a podcast, I move my microphone around like that literally daily and a lot of times, many times a day. And if I were using this rode podcaster, I'd be constantly retightening those knobs and I think eventually they would wear out. So I'm not a big fan of this microphone for that reason of the weight alone. And also it is a USB only microphone. Does have a headphone jack and a volume dial for that headphone jack, which is great. Another unique thing about this microphone, it's made in Australia. Found that very unusual. Most of the microphones that we see today on the market are made in China. Nothing wrong with making it in Australia. In fact, I think it's great that they're manufacturing things like this in Australia. But it's probably one reason why this is one of the more expensive microphones in our review list. And it's not the most expensive, there's a couple more that are more expensive. But it's $229 for this microphone. So it's not the cheapest one you could choose or you know, purchase. It's probably, you know, if you're a budget minded podcaster or are you just trying it out and you're not sure you're going to stick with it. Probably not the best choice for you because you don't want to spend a whole lot of money on equipment if you're not going to stick through it. So I would recommend, you know, there may be other microphones if you're a starter podcaster now. You know, if you really want a microphone that's going to look cool on video and you're planning to record your episodes as video, I do have to say the look of this microphone, the design of it is pretty cool. It's painted white, which is a very clean look. And you know, it's going to be noticeable on video. As you know, hey, it's a piece of equipment. So it's got a look to it and it's got a weight to it. But again, that look and that weight don't necessarily translate to quality audio. And if you look at my unboxing videos, you'll see that my boom mount, I've mounted a shock mount at the end of it. And that's so that, you know, any vibrations that may happen ambiently in the room if somebody's walking around or if you're, you know, you're moving around or maybe you accidentally touch the microphone. The microphone, it's on these sort of rubberized springs or netting, webbing of elastic material. That means vibrations that go to the table your boom mount is mounted on to your boom mount don't translate through the microphone. And that's a useful thing. I personally like the shock mount, but the Rode podcaster will not fit in a standard shock mount and it's not even made to attach that way. It's got a special little adapter that screws onto the end of pretty much any shock mount. That connection is universal, so it will work with pretty much any boom mount that you can buy out there. But it's a hard connection, so any vibrations are going to come through to the microphone. So, you know, bear that in mind. And then the audio quality, I recorded the same line I did with all of them and I have that track for you to listen to at the blog post@feedyourbrand.co. and I was not a big fan of the audio quality. I really found there to be quite a bit of noise and a little bit of static at times. I don't know, I wasn't a big fan. But, you know, for $229, I felt that the audio quality didn't live up to the impression, the price and the weight of this product. Might lead you to believe that it is worthy of to me, again, the end of the day, no matter how a microphone looks or feels or its packaging, if it doesn't have the goods under the hood, meaning in the audio in your computer or in your digital audio recorder, if it's not giving you the quality audio you want, you know, we're podcasters here. I kind of feel like what's the point? So check it out for yourself, make your own judgment. But I was not a big fan of the audio quality of this one. So now moving on to our next to last microphone and second most expensive microphone. Remember, I decided to approach this all from a retail price order here, from lowest to high. So we're getting to the last two. This is a microphone that's regarded as an incredibly high quality microphone. And I have to say after testing it, I agree it is a very high quality microphone for $327 on Amazon as I purchased it to test. And it is the HIL PR40. This is an XLR connection microphone only. So you will need to use an XLR cable to connect it to an interface that will take the XLR cable and then output a USB cable to your computer. Or to really get the best quality audio, you're going to want to go through the XLR cable either directly to a digital audio recorder or to a mixing board out to a digital audio recorder or you can, you know, a lot of times get an interface that goes USB from your mixing board into your computer. So in order to record the best quality audio from this microphone, you definitely want to go either into a mixing board to a digital audio recorder or directly into a digital audio recorder for those that have an XLR port. But you know, I was really impressed with the quality of not only the microphone but the packaging comes with a very nice case. Got heavy duty foam in this. If you're going to travel with this mic, it's going to be very well protected. You don't have to worry about what TSA is going to do to your luggage. Not that I would put it in my checked luggage, I probably would put it in my carry on. But nonetheless, a very high quality case. Now one thing that did surprise me about this microphone, it has a reputation, it's very well regarded, it's a high quality audio and I'm already, I've sort of given away. You know, I usually save what's the audio quality till sort of the end of when I'm talking about each mic. But you know what, I'm not saving that for the end, this microphone, very high quality audio. I was very impressed and you're gonna want to go listen to it with the track at the blog post. But I was very surprised. For $327 in a very high quality microphone, they do not include an XLR cable with it. I really found that almost amusing and a little disappointing at the same time. I mean, here I reviewed in this episode very early on a $59 combination USB and XLR microphone. That's a pretty decent quality, not only physically, but sound quality. And it comes with a XLR cable. Both the Audio Technica microphones come with an XLR cable. Why can't a Heil PR40 microphone come with an XLR cable? It just doesn't make any sense to me. So they also haven't provided really room for it in their case. If you're going to travel case. So now if you're going to travel with this microphone, you know, another sort of irony of it is while it comes with a very nice case, it's not as practical to travel with an XLR microphone because you've also got to travel with either a digital audio recorder or an interface that takes the XLR cable. So that's more equipment you've got to travel with. So it's kind of, you know, a little surprising, you know, hey, this really nice travel case or it makes this great impression and has heavy duty foam that's going to protect it. And then the reality is, you know, you're going to have to travel with other things that won't fit in that case. So that's a little odd. But you know what, it's a very good microphone. It's really small from what I was expecting. And you know, if you're going to use it in your own little recording area, whether you have, you know, home, office, work, office, or you've created a real studio area, if you're going to use this microphone, you may want to buy it has its own boom mount that fits the microphone perfectly. I probably would recommend that, but that's a more expensive boom mount. You're going to increase your budget a little more, you know, using that mic. But the other thing I want to mention about this microphone is it is very specifically and it states it on a removable label. When you pull it out of the box, it's wrapped around the microphone that this is what they call an end fire microphone, which means you really need to speak directly into the end of it. You don't want to have your mouth off to the side of it. So you want to think about that when you're mounting it, however you're going to mount it, to speak into it. You want to speak into the end of it. And so not all microphones are that way. In fact, you know, most of the ones that I've talked about today are not that way and don't mention it. And that's because it's not critical to do that. But the HI LPR40 definitely is an end fire microphone need to speak in the end of it. There is no headphone jack and no volume control because an XLR microphone by its nature needs to be connected to another device in order to record it. And that's where you would plug a headphone into to listen to whether that's a mixing board or a digital audio recorder. Now another thing I want to mention, that's a device you may want to consider when using a microphone like the Heil. And also something you may want to consider when using a microphone like the next one I'm going to review after the Heil. The most expensive microphone in this review is that you can instead of, you know, the old school way was you'd buy a mixing board. And in fact, when I started podcasting, I bought a mixing board because I wanted to be able to have more control over the equalizer. And you know, I had was going to plug two microphones into it, one for me and one for Tracy. Her voice is a little louder than mine, so I can, you know, lower the level of her microphone relative to mine on the mixing board. I can do the equalizer a little bit because we have different tones in our voices. Mine's a little more low and resonant, hers is a little more high. The other thing is I wanted to do a mix minus and I don't want to get off on too big a tangent here. But we were using Skype to record at the time through the computer. So I hooked the mixing board up to a USB interface and then I was recording to a digital audio recorder. I wasn't using the computer to record. I was using the computer to communicate with my guest and bring their audio through the computer out to the mixing board and into my digital audio recorder. But I also was sending our voices through the mixing board out to the computer so our guests could hear us. So I was recording a very high quality audio for me and Tracy. The guest was limited by the computer and Skype and USB anyway. But you bring their sound into the mixing board and to the digital audio recorder, but you don't want to send their sound back out to the computer because it would create a feedback loop and a bit of echo. Now that's kind of old school recording. And these days a lot of the programs people use to record Zoom, squadcast and others already there's a way to separate what you know your guest is hearing from what you're hearing and from what's being recorded. And you don't really need the mix minus in most situations anymore. So mixing board's kind of old school, but there may be reasons why you still want to do it. But in most cases, if you want to hook up more than one microphone and be able to adjust different levels, like I said, for like my voice and Tracy's, there's another kind of USB interface that I just want to mention here that would apply to the Heil and the next microphone. And I've come to know these devices recently and I have set up clients with these a couple times and it works very well. It's a device by a company called focusrite and it's their Scarlett series of interfaces. And the most common one I set people up with when they have the need is called the Focusrite Scarlett 18i8. And that allows up to three microphones to be connected and then exported into one USB cable to go into a computer to communicate via Zoom or whatever it is, you know, squadcast, whatever you're going to do. And really the only way you're going to be able to hook up more than one microphone if you've got two of you or three of you in a room and you're going to connect with somebody else over Zoom or across the Internet, is to have a device like the Scarlett 18i8 by Focusrite or a mixing board. That's where you would still need that kind of either older school equipment if it's a mixing board or newer school with the focusrite devices. I'm going to do a separate review on the focusrite device. And so you're going to want to look for that and check that out. If you have the need to have individual microphones locally and still connect to a computer, that's the main reason you'd want to use that type of device. But the Heil is one of those microphones that can be used that way and connect right up to that device. So I guess that's really all I have to say about the Heil PR40 except audio quality. Excellent recorded over XLR to a digital audio recorder. Very high quality, $327, not cheap. You may need to buy an accessory or two to use it properly. So that's not going to be your total budget. Not something I would buy today. But I do have to say some of the other microphones, especially the Audio Technica ones, are so close in quality. When you listen to those tracks and compare to the Heil, I would say, technically, yeah, okay, the Heil, it beats them quality wise if you're recording through xlr whatever microphone to a digital audio recorder, but not by much. So at some point you may need to make a decision. How much money am I willing to spend to get just a little bit higher quality recording? Is it really worth the money? And then the other thing to consider is the reality of us as podcasters is the distribution method for podcasting requires all recordings be reduced down to an MP3 file format and MP3 is limited in its audio quality. I'm not saying it's bad. I love listening to podcasts. You get excellent quality podcasts over MP3. But the Heil microphone and most digital audio recorders would be recording a file that's like a WAV format usually, or some other high quality format. You don't distribute podcasts in WAV file format. The files would be too large. You end up converting them or your podcast producer converts them to MP3. So if you're going to be distributing your audio as MP3, you may really not be getting all the quality benefit of such a high quality microphone as the Heil PR40. That's all I'm saying. There's no right or wrong answer. There's nothing wrong with using the Heil PR40. Great microphone, excellent high quality. If that's what you want and budget's not a big deal for you, by all means use it. It's fantastic. But for a lot of us, when you consider the cost versus the benefit and the cost versus the end result quality, you may consider, you know, whether that's the right fit for you.

Okay, so now we get to the last microphone in this episode of reviews. And I know this has been a long episode. You may be listening to this in parts, but hey, this is. Hopefully you're going to find this to be very valuable in considering what microphones to buy. So the last microphone, the most expensive microphone in this review series, it's another one by the manufacturer named Shure S U R E. And remember we had a Shure microphone earlier in this series. It was less expensive. Well, this is called the Shure SM7B in air quotes here. Legendary vocal microphone. And I kind of chuckled When I saw that, was the name of it Legendary? I was, I was a big fan of How I Met yout Mother. When that show was out, what was it about 10 years ago or more? And you know, Barney, who's the character that was played by Neil Patrick Harris, would always say legendary. And I don't know, I guess I'm dating myself, but I was amused when, you know, wow, this microphone thinks a lot of itself. It's calling itself the Legendary Microphone, if you do say so yourself. Well, hey. So, well, let's hear about this mic. It's $399, the most expensive microphone. And has it got the goods under the hood? Well, it's a very large microphone. It's XLR only, again, so not usb. And it comes with a few extras. It comes with a very big windscreen that if you're going to use indoors in a studio setting to record, is really not necessary. I mean, if you're going to use this thing outdoors, maybe for recording, you know, video in movies or television or something, and you're in a little windy environment, you might need that big windscreen it comes with, but you're probably not going to need it. It's got enough of a windscreen built into the microphone. It's probably no big deal. It is very heavy. I joked about it when I did the unboxing that I could use this thing for a boat anchor if I needed to keep my boat from going anywhere in a relatively small lake. Not that you would do that with a nice piece of electronic equipment, but still, this thing is almost £2. It's the single heaviest microphone out of all them that I tested that are meant to be mounted on a boom mount. And this one is a boom mount microphone. It does not come with a tabletop stand, nor would it be one you really could practically use with a tabletop stand. So I'm going to call this a boom mount only microphone. And so it does come with all of the necessary threaded adapters for the two different sizes of threads that any boom mount you would buy would come with. So it'll fit any boom. But again, if you don't have a heavy duty boom mount that's got some heavy duty springs, you're going to have the same problem with this one that I mentioned earlier with the Rode podcaster. If you've got, you know, the common $30 boom mount, probably not going to be adequate for this microphone, you could do it, but you're probably gonna wear out the boom mount pretty quick. You may as well buy A better quality boom mount for a bit more money that actually has the spring loaded capacity to counterbalance this almost 2 pound microphone. So definitely do that. But you know, one of the things I do want to give some credit to this microphone for its design and how it mounts to the boom mount and where it puts the XLR connector. Because most of them just stick that XLR connector on the very back end of the microphone. Think of it as sort of a cylinder and at the back end would be a mount. Well, this microphone doesn't do that. It's got a separately wired and upward facing port for that XLR cable. That what it really does is keeps the cable out of your way on the boom mount. And you know, you probably want to go look at the video at the blog post at FeedYourBrand Co, the unboxing video to see that where we do show some video and show how you connect the cable. It's pretty clever and I thought it was really nice. So a nice feature into how that's mounted. So again, this is an XLR only microphone. There's no headphone jack, no volume control because you wouldn't need it. Again, you're going to hook up to a digital audio recorder through some kind of interface. You could use a mixing board. You could use the Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 or equivalent interface if you needed to, to hook it up to either USB or to connect more than one mic. So, you know, mounting it was not that difficult and setting it up and using it not that difficult. I would say the XLR quality recording was very good for this microphone. Usb. Connecting it through an interface to usb, I didn't find the quality to be all that great. But again, that's probably not why most people would buy this microphone. Anyway. Using it through XLR is much better. But as the most expensive microphone that we've tested here, I think you really want to question whether you're going to use the full capability of this microphone. It has some other fancy settings depending on if you're going to record, you know, voice like this or music. It's got the capability on a very technical side of things. Not for the average user that you can change some switches on the back of it and configure it for different ranges of sound. So, you know, great if you need that capability for most people. I think it's kind of overkill in the podcasting space. But you know, again, there may be a reason why some of you might choose that. But you know what, go to the blog post at Feedyourbrand co listen to the raw audio track side by side and decide for yourself. If a $400 microphone is going to give you that much better quality and something you would want, then by all means you know, go for it. So all in all, I know that's a whole lot. This is one of the longer episodes that I've done recently. I'm downloading a lot of information to you and it maybe a little information overload, but I really wanted to give an honest, impartial review to a range of microphones. Again, I approach them from a price perspective at the end of the day. Right now I use one of the Audio Technica mics and I think for most people they're right on provide everything you need. High quality, provide nice amount of accessories, very portable, but whether you're going to travel with them or not. Very good quality mic but may not be for everybody. Maybe you want a USB only microphone and maybe you have a different reason for needing something a little different. Everybody's situation is not the same. I completely respect why someone would buy a Hilpr 40 and why someone would buy a Samsung that's a little cheaper. To each his own and that's great. But really I just try to put all this information out there for you to decide for you to be able to test out, listen to for yourself and decide what you think is right for you. As some other microphones come on the market. And I know one that is going to come on the market a little later after this episode is going to air a few months after I may make an addendum to this episode and add that to it. I certainly will add it to the blog post. But there may be some reasons why another microphone is worthy of review and of putting it out there to all of you. So I'm committed to continuing to do that, to offer all the information out there for you to check out. So hope you found this valuable. Definitely check out the blog post if you have any feedback on this. Let us know what you think. Especially on social Media, on Facebook FeedYourBrand we'd love to hear about what you have to think about any of these microphones or this episode. Any comments, we'll be happy to reply to you. And so I guess that's really all I have to say for today for this rather comprehensive microphone review episode. So thanks for listening everybody. This has been Tom Hazard, your host on Feed. You'd brand.

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