 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal here for today's video, going to be doing a quick sound comparison between two different popular XLR microphones. The first is going to be the microphone you're listening to, which is the Audio Technica AT 2020. This thing has been in production for a while, but there's good reason for its longevity. It is a good microphone, popular among many podcasters, YouTubers and streamers. And I'm going to be comparing it to the other XLR microphone currently in my arsenal, which is the Shure PGA48. In terms of the price points, the Audio Technica AT 2020 is a little bit more expensive. This microphone comes in at approximately $100, 100 euro give or take. Whereas the PGA48 was actually one of the cheaper microphones I picked up. It's about $50 over on Amazon at the moment. Now in terms of the technical specs, the AT 2020 is a cardioid condenser microphone and the PGA48 is a cardioid dynamic vocal microphone. And the way I'm going to do this test is pretty simple. Firstly, listening to me speak through this microphone, I'm going to be reading, as I've done in my other audio tests, a few lines from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. But firstly, just a little bit about both microphones, the AT 2020 cardioid condenser microphone is used by musicians, podcasters, streamers. It is a side-addressed microphone with a cardioid polar pattern. So let's jump straight into the test and then we're going to switch over to the Shure microphone. So chapter one from Charles Dickens Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair. We had everything before us. We had nothing before us. We were all going direct to heaven. We were all going direct the other way. In short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree of comparison only. I've read that passage in every microphone test I've done so far, so I almost know it by heart at this point. Just a couple more details about the gear I'm using. So obviously this is the AT2020. You've been hearing in this video up to now. I am running it through the Behringer Euphoria UM2 audio interface. My gain is set to approximately 60%. And I'm running this into a computer, running a bunch of Linux and recording into OBS Studio. Okay, so I'm going to go ahead now and swap over the XLR input to the Behringer from the AT2020 to the Shure PGA microphone. Okay, so I've gone ahead now and swapped over to the Shure PGA 48, which is definitely one of their more budget-friendly microphones. I picked this guy up on Amazon for only about $50. I actually use it for more handheld reporting use. I ended up liking it so much that I picked up another one for interviews. But actually I think this might be the first time I've really given it a good shot going into the computer. So this is a dynamic microphone. The Audio Technica AT2020 is of course a condenser microphone. Dynamic microphones I've heard in untreated rooms actually stand up a little bit better, but I'm not an audio expert. I'm just learning this stuff. And to be honest, I'm kind of making this sound comparison so I can hear the difference myself. Now, in terms of where we are in gain, we're still about 50 to 60% on the Beringer Euphoria UM2 user interface. As before, bringing this guy into an Ubuntu Linux computer into OBS Studio. And yeah, I'm gonna be very interested to hear how this mic sounds. And also of course, very interested to hear your thoughts in the comments. Now, one other final thing just to say about the whole dynamic versus condenser microphone thing for YouTube and streamers and other folks. Some people don't like the look of a dynamic microphone. They think that a condenser mic, this is the Audio Technica I just took off my mount here, looks more attractive. I don't have strong feelings about it. I have heard that dynamic microphones are better if you're going for a radio voice because apparently in radio stations, they use a lot of these dynamic mics rather than condensers. You can tell me if I sound more like a radio DJ with microphone one or microphone two. Okay, PGA48 is a little bit more about the microphone before we wrap up this video. It is definitely not as famous as the SM58, which is kind of the universal stage microphone choice. Little bit cheaper than the PGA58. This is a PGA48. And my observation as a recording microphone, like when I'm doing vocals for my YouTube videos where I use this wirelessly, great microphone, I really like it, does have a bit of handling noise. And I've heard the PGA58 is substantially better, so maybe that'll be one of my forthcoming upgrades. Anyway, I'll leave it as a wrap here or no, I will not because I need to do my, I need to do my Charles Dickens sample. I almost forgot. Okay, we're gonna do the samples you, if you wanna compare head to head, same room, same guy, same time, different microphone, hear them back to back. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. It was a season of light, it was a season of darkness. It was a spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us. We were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. In short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on it being received for good or for evil in the superlative degree only. Now, because this is a microphone test, let me just tell you guys what I'm gonna be doing in audio, normalizing to minus 23 LUFS in post production in Caden Live. Otherwise, I'm gonna leave it pretty much as it came off the sound audio interface into my computer. Hope this little comparison's been useful if you are trying to decide which microphone you want to use, whether you're looking at YouTube, streaming or gaming. If you do wanna get more videos, I do cover microphones a little bit now and again as I progress on my own journey. Then of course, feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thank you very much for watching.