AKG Pro Audio Ara Professional USB-C Condenser Microphone, Dual Pattern Audio Capture Modes for Podcasting, Video Blogging, Gaming and Streaming, Blue & Silver

Bought it as replacement mic for my brother for $39 it blows my mind with it build quality. Amazing sound quality. Super sensitive to human voice with almost full range pickup . Can't beat its value for money with its set on desk design that works very well also with pattern select 👍 😀 👌

I wanted something not too expensive to use on calls with my team. I have a new pair of wireless headphones with a built-in mic and it was way too quiet for people on the call to hear me clearly with other weird balancing issues. I needed a mic that I can sit on my desk in a stationary position and not need to lean over when talking. With this mic I get crisp clear audio from about a two foot distance (would probably be good at further distances but this is my use case). Solves the problem I had in exactly the way I had in mind.

Huge improvement over the built-in microphone on my PC or the one on my monitor. High quality sound, easy to connect, and at a very reasonable price.

I compared this against the JLab Talk Go and the HyperX SoloCast. The intended use was just for basic voice chat on calls and while gaming, and I wanted something that sounded good (don't need studio quality) both up close and from across the room with minimal background noise pickup resulting in echoing on the other end. While all three mics performed ok, this was the best performer, though at a fairly substantial price difference. For roughly the same price (depending on if it's on sale, the HyperX is either the same price or very slightly more), I feel the HyperX is better than the JLab by a fairly large margin and is the obvious better choice between the two. On top of that, it has very easy and obvious controls, simply requiring a tap on a large button on top to mute/unmute, and even allows you to switch between showing the red light when muted or not. In contrast, the JLab mic has small buttons on the bottom, and switching between modes gives no indication as to which mode it's in other than the color of the light ring, which is both distracting and unintuitive, as you need to remember which color is for which mode. The downside to the HyperX is that it only has a single mode (Cardioid Polar, no omnidirectional), but switching between the modes on the JLab especially but also the AKG didn't seem to make much difference, and for my use I don't need omni. I ended up going with the AKG because it was the best of the three in quality and background noise reduction, but it's almost twice the cost of the JLab and the HyperX (when the HyperX is on sale) and I certainly wouldn't say it's twice as good. It was more than I wanted to spend, but it wasn't a lot so I just went with it. For anybody with a strict budget, the HyperX isn't going to do much worse than the AKG but will be better than the JLab, at least based on my limited testing. Despite going with this one over the HyperX, I gave the HyperX 5 stars and this one 4, because for the price difference I really expected a bigger difference. For pure performance, if they were the same price, I'd rate this higher, of course, but it loses points for value. The controls on the AKG are simple, with a prominent, well-placed two-position rotary switch to select the pickup pattern and a mute button. While not hard to press by any means, the mute button does require some pressure and has a fairly loud clicking sound, which requires either a firm mic stand or gripping of the mic to press the button so the mic itself isn't pushed/moved, and between grabbing the mic and the click of the button, it may be noisier when recording or for anyone on the other end than the HyperX with its touch-sensitive tap-to-mute button. The tests I did were both with Discord and in-game voice chat. Regardless of the mic, the results were always better with Discord, as it apparently has quite good noise reduction and echo cancellation. That said, even the best mic (the AKG) still has some background noise and echo where the other person can hear themselves as well as whatever game, music, or whatever I'm playing. So if you really want to eliminate that, it seems you're going to have to spend a fair bit more. I wasn't willing to do so, since it's not something I plan to use much, and haven't since I bought it, I just want something for the occasion where I want to talk without a headset, and it works ok for that. Newer GPUs by Nvidia and AMD offer noise suppression, which may help make a cheaper mic work better. I couldn't test the mics with those, so if you have them, keep that in mind. I avoided the popular Yeti microphones for a couple reasons: the brand is now owned by Logitech, a garbage company, and, based on reviews, the new version is a significant drop in quality compared to the older one, not surprising with Logitech now at the helm.

As an owner of many snowballs and friends who formerly had them, for $50, by comparison this is a no-brainer. Metal construction, USB C, clear enough audio that people were commenting if i had purchased a podcast microphone, and plug-n-play setup make this a winner in my book. Looking at reviews in the past, i could see why people would recommend it at it's former $99 price point, but at under $50, this is absolutely worth it. Only complaint is that I wish the audio jack and volume control could be used for general system audio instead of monitoring mixed with system audio. When plugged in, the volume control only controls the audio used for monitoring. Not a deal-breaker since connecting to the system itself for system audio is a non-issue.

Sounds great, settings are very adjustable to make it just the righy sensitivity and being able to hear yourself as your recording if you plug in headphones is really cool. Also the fitting for the stand was just the right size that I was able to use it with a mic arm I already had, very convenient.

Sientes una mejora, pero no tanta como se esperaba, tengo una laptop Asus y para reuniones en vivo a veces suena mejor el micrófono integrado que este... Realmente es muy poca la mejora, por lo que uno paga y por la marca... Voy a comprar una web cam con micrófono incorporado a ver si solo trabajo con eso... Y dejo de usar este.

Clear, build quality is A+. Easy to plug & play for all OS. Goated mix

Mikrofon jest dość mały, bardzo ładny, solidnie wykonany (dość ciężki) i przede wszystkim nagrywa dobry dzwięk. Brakuje trochę regulacji głośności mikrofonu, jest tylko regulacja głośności słuchawek. Natomiast to co dyskwalifikuje dla mnie ten mikrofon to potworne dudnienie gdy dotyka się powierzchni na ktorej stoi mikrofon, pisze na klawiaturze itp. Jeśli ktoś chce jednocześnie nagrywać i uzywać klawiatury to ten mikrofon sie nie nadaje, najdrobniejsze nawet stuknięcia w biurko czy klawiaturę zmienia się w potężne dudnienie, ramię do mikrofonu nie pomaga chyba ze jest przytwierdzone do czego innego niż biurko z klawiaturą (świetnie to słychać w recenzji na youtube na kanale Creators Village) Zdecydowanie odradzam!

Maravilhoso este microfone. Ele pega qualquer ruído externo. Qdo for usar, não pode ter nenhum ruído, principalmente se for usar em estúdio de gravação

Sinceramente no se puede pedir más de un micrófono ready to connect USB, no me ha decepcionado nada, la calidad es excelente, suenan súper bien para mis clases en línea de música. El audio es muy nítido, no suena basuriento, captura muy bien el sonido del piano y más o menos del violín (batalla ligeramente con los agudos del violín, pero esto es normal hasta para un micrófono profesional, es difícil capturar el sonido de un violín fielmente, requiere micrófono especial y lugar de buena acústica). Adoro el producto, los materiales, todo... Es un producto de alta calidad claramente, como debe de ser. Nota: la base donde se pone tiene la rosca de plástico, es un asco, es horrenda, porque esa cosa se puede barrer a largo plazo, (por mi fortuna no la uso, muy mal por el fabricante porque la base se siente de calidad pero eso destruye toda la calidad que tiene) por mi fortuna no la uso así que me da igual, pero tomen nota. Para finalizar igual tiene una apariencia súper bonita, me gusta mucho.

Great sound, super easy to setup.

Der ist sehr gute mikrofon sehr sensibel (muss sein) Erfüllt seine Zwecke