 If you're looking for a combined USB and XLR microphone, then there are a number of options coming onto the market these days. And I've been using the short MV7, which one is it? The bright one I should need to point to. I've been using this one since I started on YouTube about three years ago or so. And I've been really happy with it. Then the PodMic USB came along, which is Rhodes offering in a similar sort of feature set, which has both XLR and USB so that you can connect it either through a mixer or directly into your computer over USB. And they very kindly sent me this one sometime last year for testing. And so then I'd had these two that I've kind of switched between them. I actually like them both. I'm currently speaking to you, by the way, in the short MV7. I should probably put up a little thing to show you what I'm talking about here. Too many microphones on the desk so I can't see my Streamdex. Here we go. Let's see if I can get these up. There we go. Let's see how people can see them. Then just recently I had two manufacturers reach out to me to ask if I'd like to test a couple of their new microphones. And one of them was this one, which is the Fifine Tank 3 and then the FieldWorld PM1, which I think stands for podcast microphone. And they are both also XLR and USB. Now, I've always sort of shied away from doing mic reviews as such on my channel because I am of the opinion that, you know, after a certain point of audio quality, we are chasing diminishing returns. And I know that there are all kinds of channels out there. If you want to get really in-depth mic reviews, then I'd definitely recommend checking out Tom Buck or also a podcastage with Bandru. And he does really in-depth reviews of all these kind of things where he will test, one against another and be looking for these minute details. But honestly, if you are speaking into one particular microphone, can the majority of people really hear the difference, certainly from one video to the next? If I was to not tell you which microphone I was on and I was talking on this video and then next week I come on a different microphone and you couldn't see what it was, you know, with that sort of separation and people really tell. And as I say, it comes back to this thing of diminishing returns for me. And that's why I've never got sucked into really going out and looking to change up my microphone. I know people switch these things out all the time. That said, having just put that little preface out there that I don't do mic reviews. Today, I'm doing a mic review and I'm reviewing these two in particular because they are at, as you can see, a lower price point. So the short MV7 is $249. The PodMic USB is just around 200, whereas these are coming in sub 100. So I thought, will it be interesting to see how they sound compared to these two? Because if you are somebody that's looking for a dual XLR slash USB microphone, then it's useful to have an idea of what is available on the market. And by the way, why might you need a dual microphone in that way? USB and XLR? Well, the reason why I chose the short MV7 when I started out is because I was looking for something that I could use over USB initially. I didn't have a mixer at the time. So now obviously I'm using my Rocaster over here. So all of these microphones are going into that. But usually I just have to just have one microphone going into here. But then I'm using the Rocaster for audio routing. But when I started out, I wasn't doing that. I just had a single USB going into my computer and it was this one here. But the reason why I got the dual option is because I knew that going forward, it may well be something that I added into the mix. And so it gives you that that thing that the microphone can sort of grow with you as you build out your studio. Incidentally, the microphone is probably one of the things that in your studio, whilst everything else may change. So I have to focus slightly there. But yeah, all of this stuff that I've got in my studio wasn't here to begin with. The one or the two things I should say that I started with were this microphone and a stream deck. But everything else, you know, sort of comes and goes, it changes, cameras change. Obviously, we get higher quality, higher resolution cameras. Maybe you upgrade lighting and things like that. So there is this kind of upgrade path that you potentially go through in a studio. But a microphone can kind of last a lifetime, really. I mean, I've got nothing. There's nothing about this one that feels like it's getting worn out. It's still sounding as good as it did the day that I got it. And so a microphone is something that you're investing in, you know, as a long term thing. And so that's why you might want to consider starting out with a USB mic and then thinking that it's something that you could use later if you decide to add in a some sort of interface. Hey, Dan, I'll just say a quick hello since you're in the chat. Great to see you. Yes, I've been a bit unwell the past couple of weeks. So hence I've not been not been streaming, but I'm pretty much back to back to normal now. So we'll see. And also the kids are just coming up to their school break. So over here, they have different holidays than in UK and US, I guess. So they're going to be off for around about two months, in fact. So that means that they're not going to be bringing any more viruses home from school. Anyway, I'm back. So so here we go. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to run through the different microphones. I'm going to do the classic sound test. I'll be switching from one to the other. And hopefully with the benefit of these little things on screen, I'll be able to hide the ones that I'm not talking about. So let me just take this off. So right now you are hearing me through the short MV7. As I say, this was the first one that I bought. It's got what they call the short motive app, which means that when you're using it on over USB, then there's an app that sits on your computer and allows you to change certain things about the microphones, sound profile and so on. So you can add compression. You can change where the what do they call it? It's like the sort of proximity. So obviously the optimum place for these microphones is going to be about kind of, you know, two to six inches away from your face but or mouth. But then, you know, you can position the mic further away. And so there is a thing in the short motive app where you can select, you know, the sort of positioning of it. So it's going to make a few adjustments. And as I say, you can adjust the the the compression and things like that to give you a bit of a richer sound potentially as well. The they've got some I forget what they call it now. But anyway, they've got some adjustments that they can you can make in there. And that's when it's connected over USB. When it is connected over USB, you've also got a headphone socket on the back. So as do all of these so that you can monitor what's going on. That's another thing, by the way, if you've if you just start to do this kind of thing, the idea of hearing your voice back as you're speaking might seem a little bit weird, but it's this thing of once you actually start doing it, it just becomes something that if you don't have your headphones in like this to me, not being able to hear my voice in my ears is a really weird thing. I can't explain it. But anyway, so that has the monitor in the back. And basically what happens then is when it's plugged in over USB on your computer, if you go into your sound preferences, what you're going to see is basically just over here, you would see the the the mic show up in here, though the short MV7 would show up and you would change that to both the input and the output. And that means that your audio from your mic is going into the computer. You're hearing it through the sort of live monitor coming through your headphones as well. But also this then becomes like a speaker source, basically, or speaker destination, I should say, your computer. So then you're hearing all of your computer audio coming back into your ears as well. It's then got a touch screen on here or touch sensitive strip, I should say, when you're using it over USB. So you can adjust things like the the what do they call it? It's not the balance, but basically, you know, whether how much you're hearing of your voice versus how much you're hearing of the rest of the audio. So if you wanted to be able to monitor your audio, your own voice, but have it slightly lower, then you can adjust that sort of that balance. I always just keep mine right down the center if I was doing that so that you can hear realistically what it's sounding like from one to the next or compared to the other, I should say. And then you've also got a slider on here that or the touch strip, I should say, allows you to adjust the the sort of gain on your mic as well. I was never really actually having said this, you know, a massive fan of this on this is also a mute button. And the reason is because it's a touch sensitive strip, but it's not there's no sort of tactile thing to it. So you do have to kind of look at it. And if your mic's pointing away from you like this, then, you know, unless you sort of like peer over the top of it, you can't necessarily see exactly where you are. And yeah, it's a it's a touch sensitive mute switch rather than something like this one, which has got a physical switch on it. But that's just a minor thing. As I say, I was using this. I didn't really use the the controls on here too much. But anyway, so this is the sure motive app that you have with this. Now, when the PodMic USB came out, and this is basically a a slightly improved version of their original PodMic. So the original PodMic was only XLR, but then the PodMic USB is XLR and USB. And it has a dial on the back here for gain. So you can adjust this here. Oh, that is actually for volume, I should say. But you've got your headphone out to come into your your headphones as well. Actually, one of the things about this one, and I'm still speaking on the show, but let me just switch over to this one since I'm talking about it. And I should probably just just some of my presets because probably in the wrong profile, but I'll leave it to one second. Let me go and adjust this. I will go back actually and try that one. Yeah, what I'll do afterwards is I'll go through all of these and I'll just switch off all of the all of the processing. I think I've done something to my processing of this one. So it's sounding a little bit odd to me right now. But anyway, I will carry on regardless. So this is the PodMic USB. And one of the things that I think is better about this one than the Shure MV7, specifically when you're using it on USB is that you have all of the same onboard processing or a lot of it that you've got on the roadcaster, for example. So that means that you've got things like you can adjust compression. But crucially, the important one for me is the noise gate. So at the moment, like when I'm speaking, when I stop speaking, everything goes quiet, and that's because I have the noise gate set so that when I don't speak, it is basically completely cutting off all of the audio so that, for example, my air conditioning unit that's going in the room here, you're not hearing that. And for me, where I'm actually using all this stuff, obviously I make YouTube videos, but the majority of use I get for these out of my studio setup is really in Zoom meetings, virtual conferences and things like that. And in instances like that where I'm in a meeting, I want it to be that when I'm not speaking, everything's quiet and there's no sort of background noise coming through to distract people. And that's done with a noise gate. Now, when I was just using the MV7 over USB, I would use a program called Audio Hijack and that allowed me to do those extra little things. But what I like about the PodMic USB is that it has all of that on board processing in the microphone itself. And you kind of set it all up in Road Central, the Road Central app. But it's kind of saving all of those settings to the mic itself. So there's like on board processing going on here. And that means that then you don't have to have any other application open. So before with this one, I would have to have Audio Hijack open all the time and make sure that, you know, my particular setup was active to be applying that processing. Whereas here it's kind of safe to the device and then you just plug it in over USB and it's it's good to go. So in terms of the sort of features of the shore versus the PodMic, I would probably come down on the side of the PodMic. I've got to always say that, yes, your voice may sound different on one to the other, so you need to test these sort of things out. But certainly for me, in terms of the features, I do prefer the PodMic from that point of view, just from the USB functionality. Obviously, when you then take those into the to the roadcaster, then, you know, you can do all those tweaks in any case when they used over XLR. And in terms of build quality, there's nothing really between these. Actually, the PodMic feels slightly heavier, you know, more heft to it, if that's the thing. But in terms of build quality, you know, they're both faultless. I haven't got any issues with them at all. Actually, that said, let me just step back from that one second. The only minor thing about the shore is that this is a micro USB connector if you're using it over USB, whereas the PodMic is a USB-C. And actually, what happened with this one? You get two cables in the in the box with it. One is a USB micro USB to a USB-A. And the other one is a micro USB to USB-C. So those the USB-A and USB-C are going to your computer. But the micro USB is on the back of here. Now, what actually happened is after, I guess, about eight months or a year of use, the micro USB connector that went into the back of this just sort of broke a little bit. So I was getting some crackling and it was basically it was kind of like the end of it was bent and there was nothing wrong with the microphone itself. It was literally just the cable. But I suspect that that is partly to do with, you know, the the robustness of micro USB versus you know, a USB-C or something like that. So all of these other ones, I should say, are using USB-C into the back of the the mic. So if that's a thing for you, then it's worth noting. However, it wasn't really an issue with this because it came with a second USB cable anyway, so I just switched out to that one and all was well again. And as I say, it wasn't anything with the microphone itself. So then let's take a look at these two because there is a obviously a big difference in price point. So this one at two hundred dollars, basically, and this one at two fifty. If you are, you know, looking at purely just wanting a dual USB XLR mic, as I say, for the USB functionality, I think the PodMic has it on this one. And then in terms of the audio, it's just going to be a case of checking checking which one sounds best. And if you can get a trial of these things, it's always always better and or maybe order both of them and send back the one that doesn't actually sound that sound great for you. I'll do a full test where I just go through and take off all the processing and you just hear what they sound like without any of this in a moment. But for the time being, let's come back to these other microphones then and let's start with this one. So this is the Field World PM1. And by the way, I get people all the time, companies asking me, you know, if I want to test this product, that product, it happens when you get to a certain point in YouTube subscribers, where people will just want to send you products to, you know, if you've got a tech review channel like this, then it sort of happens. And I often just reject these things outright. You know, if there is, you know, anything that I'm not currently using unless there's a really compelling thing about it, where I think, you know, this would be a really interesting thing to test out for the benefit of my audience and more likely often the, you know, sort of academy members. But I don't just take, you know, any products that people offer. And I've had a load of offers of microphones over the over the last few years and not just microphones, but mixes and things like that. And they're often from what I've maybe some what snobbishly thought of as, you know, non-brands. Everybody knows, sure, it's kind of, you know, the industry leader in microphone technology. You could say, you know, you've got Rode as well, which is industry leader in, you know, podcasting and these sort of, what should we call it? Sort of consumer level devices and things like that. So, you know, these are just two, you know, industry standards at this point in this space, whereas, you know, Feel World is not a name that rolls off my tongue, certainly, but certainly also not when you are thinking about, you know, microphones and the same with the second one here, which I'll just pop the little thing up. So this is the Fifine again, it's not something that is a name that is synonymous with microphones in the same way that Rode and Shure are. So somewhat snobbishly, when companies have reached out about these, I've not tended to take them up on the offer. And as I say, there's been these companies, there's other companies who have offered to send me stuff. But I did think that because one of the points that I always make to people is that, you know, above a certain point, we are chasing these diminishing returns, certainly folks in the Take One Tech Academy, when they're asking me about these things and they're saying, I've got the MV7, should I upgrade to the SM7B or they've got this microphone and should they upgrade to that one? And it's kind of like the last thing on my upgrade list is my microphone. Like I say, I'm happy with the audio sound and I should probably switch to one of these so that you can hear exactly what it's saying. So let me just switch to this one. So now you are hearing me on this microphone. And once again, I've not done anything with the processing of this, I should probably just boost it up a little bit as well because the audio level is a little bit low. Let's see what what processing I've got this set on as well. And I will, as I say, go through and just adjust this in a little while. But now we are on this one. So the the Fifine Tank 3. And so, yeah, because I am always telling people, you know, the microphone is the last thing on my upgrade list. It's the same with cameras, actually, considering, you know, we're doing video and audio, you would think camera and microphone are the most important things. But actually, for me, it's the technology surrounding it. It's the lighting. It's the stream deck, you know, the automation and things like that that we can do. It's the audio routing that the RODECaster gives me. Those are the things that I get really excited about. And actually, my Sony ZV-E10 is sitting behind my teleprompter apart from a brief week out up there when I went to the US last year to present an event with ECAM. Then, yeah, it's pretty much just sits behind there. I don't make any changes to it. And the same with the microphone. You know, the microphone is the last thing that I'm upgrading. So with that said, it was a case of, right, well, let me just test these out and see how they sound compared to the other ones. Because if you are just looking for a microphone and maybe you've got a different budgetary considerations, then I thought that would be a useful thing to do. So this is the Fifine Tank 3. And if I just take this down off here for a moment, as you can see, it is, whoops, if I get the right one, it is a, I beg your pardon. I am actually doing the wrong one. I beg your pardon. This is the problem. This is this one that you're hearing right now. It is the Field World PM1. And again, it is dual USB and XLR, USB-C. And this is what it looks like. So the difference with this one actually is it did come with the stand as well. So in the box, you get the XLR cable. You also get a USB cable. And then it does come with a little stand as well. So a desk stand. Actually, the desk stand is a little bit short for me. So I've propped it up on the box. Here is the box itself. So that is the box for the microphone. By the way, the XLR cable that I'm actually using for this though, I'm using all the same cables. So they're all my RODE XLR cables. It did feel that the XLR cable that came with this was a little bit on the thin side. I don't know if it was or not, but let me just show you what I mean by that. So here is the cable. It's not so much that the cable itself is a bit thin, although it is on a little bit short. It just didn't have quite the same sort of quality feel to my RODE cables. So I just kept my RODE cables so that the cable wasn't gonna be a differentiating factor in any of these things. It was just, yeah, the overall sort of quality that I didn't quite feel as good as the RODE cables. You just, I've got to put the box back because that is my mic stand at the moment to raise it up to the right level. But you can hear what it's sounding like. I will go through and do a sort of test of all of these in terms of, yeah, sort of explosives, sibilants, and all of that kind of stuff in a moment as well. But this is the feel world then. And then what I'll also do now is I'll go to this one, which is the Fifine tank three. And if I switch over to that one, this is what this one sounds like. And I've got the same processing on all of these actually. So I've just put the same processing profile. I'll go through and take it off. If my sort of first initial reaction though, because this is the first time I'm hearing these two, I've literally just plugged them in and we'll see how this all goes. But now you're hearing this one. And if I just switch between this one and then now this one, I mean, saying that I'm not on audio file or anything like that, I can clearly hear a difference in these two. And to me, this one sounds as if it's got a much better sound to it. And if I compare that with the MV7, so now you're hearing this one. If we just compare that to the MV7 though, I've got too many things on here. So now you're hearing the MV7, now it's the Fifine, now it's the MV7, now it's the Fifine, now it's the MV7. I mean, if I was to hear that in a video from one week to the next, I'm not sure that I would notice a massive difference to that right now. So this is coming back to this thing. I've got too many overlays here. There we go. So this is the one you're listening to me on now. Now this one doesn't come with a stand as such. I've got to say, I do quite like the design of it, the size of it, it's more sort of narrow than the, this one, the Feel World. This one is, as I say, $60. This one is of just about $90. Again, it's got the XLR and USB on the back, also the port for your 3.5 mil for your headphones. I like the fact that this has got a hardware mute and we'll see it. I will do a test of these on USB, but when you press the button, that's like a hardware mute on the mic. And as I mentioned before, the touch sensitive strip that you've got on the MV7 is, can be a little bit tricky to actually see it if you've not looking down on the mic. Whereas this is a nice, easy to locate hardware mute button. Apologies for the handling noise because I'm picking this up on its stand. It's got this sort of single sided yoke to it. So rather than coming around both sides, and that means that you've then got these dials on the side here, one of them is for the mic gain and then the other one is for the headphones. So if you're monitoring on the mic itself, then it is going to be for that. So let me just have a quick check in with the chat. I'll say, hello, hello Florence, great to see you here. Dan, hi Dan. You have the PodMight USB. I cannot recommend it enough. I use it in XLR with the Streamer X, though the latest update to Unify has created an issue with the voice monitoring. Oh, interested to hear about that. I'm not sure, I haven't heard of that or experienced it myself, but yeah, the PodMight USB is just rock solid, honestly. And like I say, with the onboard processing, when you are using it over USB, then it's a really good robust thing. And as I say, the USB versus the MV7, I would always recommend the PodMight USB just because of the added functionality that you get, specifically the noise gate, honestly, specifically the noise gate. It's such a useful thing to have onboard on a USB mic without having to need any other software. I also like the aesthetic of it. And I really like the fact with the MV7, sorry, with the PodMight, that they've done this sort of thoughtful design with the windshield here, that they've actually kept the same design aesthetic to the windshield as on the mic itself. So whether you're using the mic without the windshield or with it on, I think it just looks just as good. So that's just my personal reference from a design point of view. I like the overall look of this as a windshield rather than it just being, you know, just a foam windshield. So that's the thing. Incidentally, the MV7, by the way, one of the issues that that did have was a slight issue. And that's the issue of plosives, which is when you say your P's. So that sound that you get of the, basically the air into the microphone. That was something that the MV7 had. And you may notice that I've actually swapped out the windshield on the MV7. So this is the windshield from the SM7B, but you can buy this separately from shore. It's the RK345 code number. Why I happen to know that, I don't know, but that is the windshield from the SM7B. And basically when that sits onto the MV7, you can see how long it is in comparison to the microphone capsule here, how far that sticks out. And it just gives you a bit of an extra space. So there's basically an inch of space between the end of the foam inside and the end of the capsule there. And what that means is it just helps to reduce those plosive sounds on the MV7. I also personally prefer the look of the MV7 with this one on, rather than the windshield that comes with it, which is sort of shorter and slightly fatter. So yeah, I prefer the look of it with that on. But that's just something else that I just added into this. Anyway, I digress, let's go through. Hi, Michael, great to see you here. I'll go through the, I'll do a bit more of an in-depth test in a moment and get to that. Thanks for asking. Hey, George, great to see you here. Hey, Vito, how you feel about micro USB in microphones? Well, yeah, so that was the thing I mentioned about the Shure was that this uses micro USB on the back versus these three which are all USB-C. And as I say, yeah, the micro USB, I had this issue where it was kind of like the plastic housing of the micro USB and the metal part that sort of sticks into the back of it because the microphone, you are often sort of moving it around, maybe adjusting the position of it and so on. And even though the cable, I had sort of rooting down my mic stand, there's always this little bit here. And basically what was happening was, as I was moving the mic around, it's obviously moving and putting tension on the micro USB into the back of here. And so it did actually sort of bend the connector. You could say that was operator error. Maybe I should have been more cautious in terms of making sure that there wasn't any undue tension on it, but I don't think I was using it aggressively. It was just general handling and things like that. So yeah, the USB-C is definitely a stronger type of connector. I suspect, I think so. Yeah, so that's my view on that. So let's go through then and I'll just talk about the sort of proximity effect. And since you've asked and also the plosives issue that we encounter with microphones. And what I'm going to do is I'll just switch off the processing on this completely. So if I come back to here. So I've turned off all processing. We're still on this one here, but you might be able to hear there is some slight air con noise in the background, maybe not a huge amount. And what I'll do is I'll just sort of move it away so that we can move it over here. So this is how it sounds when it's basically, as you can see about a foot away from my face. There is definitely some plosive issues with this one if you are talking directly into it, but actually with any microphone, if you've got this issue of plosives, so the P sound causing that sort of popping or whatever you want to call it, then the simple solution to that is actually just to have the microphone slightly off axis. So that exhalation of air is basically bypassing it altogether. You still do get it in a little bit anyway, but it certainly does help reduce it. So if I say anything beginning with a P over here, it's not as pronounced as if I say something beginning with a P here. So just speaking across the microphone will help to reduce that. Let's switch over to this other one for a second. And what I'm going to do now, so this is back on this one. This automatically feels for me, yeah, just not as clear. Let me go over to my presets. I'm going to take off all of the processing on this. So yeah, for me, certainly this one just doesn't sound quite as clear. It certainly sounds, I guess the word is muddy, I guess. But yeah, this is what this one sounds like with no processing whatsoever. This is it sort of further away. It's certainly doing a better job actually of picking up further away. But on the other hand, that is maybe reflective of the fact that it's, yeah, I don't know how to describe it. There's actually not as much of a proximity effect on this, but I feel like when I'm speaking into it even close up, I'm getting a lot more of the room noise. So maybe that is the difference between a $70 mic and a more expensive one, but this certainly just feels like I'm getting a lot more of the sort of room noise, even if I'm pretty close up onto it. I mean, I can adjust things like the gain here to just boost that up a little bit, but we've got no processing on it. And yeah, the plosives on this one are not as pronounced, but it's got this windshield on it. Maybe if I just turn it down for a second, let me switch back to this one for a moment, just so that I can show you inside here. So there is the capsule inside, and it comes with this foam windshield over here. So let's have a look, and I'll just come in and check into these comments for a second. So you're facing the same issue I guess that is with the monitoring, is it? Hmm, I still can't get why, sure of all audio tech manufacturers still using, it is quite odd really, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I'm surprised by that. The SM7B with the Rocaster or PodMic USB to begin with, exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised that they haven't at least changed it now. I mean, I can understand maybe when it came out however many years ago that to use the micro USB was the thing to do, but certainly now you would think it would be ready for an upgrade. Maybe there's something that I don't know about these things though. So let me just come back to the MV7 then, and we will take a look at that one. So now I'm back onto the MV7, and you can hear that this is more sort of clear, but let me just turn off my processing on this one as well. So now we've got no processing on this as well. As I say, there is this plosives issue, certainly not so much with this one if you talk across it, but if I take this off, and you wouldn't use the microphone like this, but that plosive sound that you get when you're speaking into the end of it is certainly a thing, but like I say, when you've got the regular windshield on, you wouldn't use this without it, then it's certainly just a slight issue, but that for me was solved with this SM7B windshield. And if I put this further away, you can instantly hear the sort of difference in the audio when you've got the mic further away. So now we've got this sort of a foot away. Actually, it's some of the questions I get when people book consultation calls with me. It's invariably about audio, considering I talk about online meetings, presentations, and video as well and content creation. Actually, the majority of calls that people book with me are about some sort of audio issue. Let me just pop this back up. And it's either audio specifically or audio routing with the Rocaster and so on, because there's this kind of like abstract nature of audio where you kind of see the microphone and you see where it's going to, but there's this sort of black art in the middle of it as to what's happening in terms of processing, audio routing, and so on. I should say, if you need help with any of this stuff and you need to book a consultation, you can do so on my website. You'll find the link in the description and obviously just on screen right now. But one of the questions that comes up a lot is, they'll say, I'm using the same microphone, maybe the Shure MV7 or maybe they've got the Shure SM7B or some other microphone and they're saying, it just doesn't sound as good as I'm hearing it sound for other people. Maybe they're watching the Joe Rogan podcast and he's got the SM7B. Why doesn't my thing sound like that? Often it is actually just this proximity effect. So if you are not really a fan of having a mic like this in shot right in front of your face, then often people will have this and they'll just have it positioned on their desk, maybe just slightly out of view or maybe down below. And then they're wondering why they're not getting the same sort of quality of sound. Well, basically, it's just a physics thing. These are intended to be used in a much closer proximity to the sound source. So anytime you're sort of moving away, you're going to lose that. So here you can see you're basically hearing a lot more of the kind of room noise. It doesn't have that sort of quite the same richness to it as when it is close up. So that's why it's kind of funny actually that this one, if I switch back to this, where are we? This one now, yeah, it's kind of funny that this one sounds pretty similar when it's there or when it's over there. It's got this really weird thing that it just seems as though it's picking up the whole room all of the time. We're not really getting a really good sort of proximity effect going on. Let me see if that is coming in. I'm just, I mean, I'm questioning if I've even got the right mic because it's just not coming through in quite the same way here. It's kind of odd. Let me just see. In fact, I think I might have, there we go. That's the right one. So that is the right way around there. There we go. But yeah, it doesn't have this same proximity. So that was just the wrong one temporarily. This doesn't have quite the same sort of proximity effect as we're getting with those other ones. Let me just switch this over here. Sorry, just some things on my roadcaster. There we go. So yeah, it's not having quite the same proximity effect when it's close and when it's far away. And then lastly, let's come back to the pod mic. So this is now the pod mic. And I think I'd actually got those the wrong way around slightly earlier, but there we go. And here we've got the pod mic, obviously when it is close up and then here it is when it's further away at the, you know, further away on the desk. So it's definitely sounding, obviously, a lot better closer up. And just to do the comparison again then between the shore and the pod mic because as I say, these are the ones I've been kind of consistently using one or the other. And there is the shore. This is now the shore MV7. And now this is the pod mic USB. So I just love the sound of both of these actually. And you can go in and do all the tweaking that you need to on those. But what I thought it would be useful to do now is if I just stay with this one for a moment, then we can go in and have a look at what these look like when they're on USB because I mentioned that with these two, there is a way that you can adjust things on the computer itself. So the shore has the shore motive app. With road, we've got the road central. And with road central, that's where you can adjust the processing on the mic itself. So let's take a look at these because neither of these in fact have an app. So you can't make any adjustments as such from the mic itself, but they do both connect over USB. So I thought it would be useful just to see what they sound like over USB. So I'm gonna start with this one and I'm gonna plug it in on USB. I'm gonna disconnect the XLR from the back and just give you a bit of a closer look at this if you want. So that is the side of the microphone. I like the style of this one and the build quality feels good as well. It's got this single-sided yoke on the back there. You can see the XLR and USB. So I'm just gonna plug this in over USB. When you do that, the little so you can mute. So what I'll do is I'll switch over to USB now and we'll see how it sounds. So let me just take this off the screen and then I'm going to go into, in fact, it's already just switched over to this. So now it's switched over to this microphone in ECAM already in fact. So we're now using this over USB and I should be able to hear that now. So, okay, so now you are hearing this microphone and so am I. So when I press this, and then it's going to unmute it like that. And then on the side, we've got the front dial here. That is the mic gain. So I can adjust the gain on the microphone. You should be hearing that up and down on your side. But then also I have the headphones here. So this is where I can hear the audio levels. Now I'm hearing myself sort of back from this. So live monitoring, but also if I had gone into my computer and set this as the output source for my computer and what I mean by that is if I just come back over to here, in your sound level. So this is the Mac. In your sound levels, you'll see you've got the output and input. So I could change my output here to the Fifine microphone and then the input changed that to the Fifine microphone as well. And so if you're on a Zoom call, for example, then you would hear all the Zoom participants coming back through this and you would be speaking into your Zoom call or whatever. Just right now, I've set this as my microphone in e-cam though, which is how you are hearing that. Let me just switch back to the roadcaster and I'll switch back to this one. So now you should be hearing me back on this one right here. But what I'm going to do now is I will go ahead and change up to be this one over USB. So we'll see how this one sounds on USB. And I'm going to unplug my USB cable from there. I will plug this one back in for monitoring, for sorry, for XLR I should say. This is now the Field World and then we will plug the USB cable into this one. And then we'll plug the headphone monitor into here as well. So that now I can monitor from this one. I've got my headphones a little bit behind my back. And then what I'll do is I'm going to change the audio source now so that it's going to be this one. So let me just take this off the screen and change the audio source. Where is it gone? It is. Let's just see. I think it might be this one. Is it this one? Yeah, so it actually shows up on the computer as a USB audio device as opposed to the other one, which is just kind of named. So if I go over to my audio settings, then yeah, it shows up as USB audio device. That's how it's appearing. And once again, you could change that to be your input, but then you can also change it to be your output as well. And that's how you would sort of set that up so that you're using this then as your microphone. So this is over at USB. There is no adjustment that you can make in terms of, as I say, compression, noise gate, all those kind of things. They just literally come in as a regular audio source as if it was just a standard USB mic. What you have on the front of here, though, is you've got this dial and this is adjusting actually the... Yeah, this is the microphone gain. And that's also adjusting then the audio in here because I'm hearing my own voice back. There isn't a dual dial like we've got on this one. There is, you'll see, if this is important to you, a big glowing LED all the way around it. And actually when you're adjusting the gain, this is sort of an indicator on the side of it. The light is changing to show you sort of the level that you've got. I mean, it's a bit of a gimmick really, isn't it? So for whatever that's worth. But if you want to have nice glowing microphones, and that's important to you, then that is a feature at least of this. So there we go, that is, this is the Fuel World PM1 $60. I've got to say, once again, I think out of the two of these, I would say I prefer the sound of this one just right off the bat that this one sounds better than this one. It is slightly more expensive. So this one is at, what was it, $80, $89. This one's $59. But I do feel that this one just has a nicer sort of feel to it overall as well in terms of building, muted that somehow. Do you know what? I've just discovered a feature. This is the thing of when you test these things out, sort of live, having not used them before and also not reading the instructions as yet. There is a mute button, a touchscreen mute button right there. So there we go. But yeah, if the color thing is important to you, then that is that. It has got a hardware mute button on this one versus a touchscreen thing there. And when it, you can see it goes red when muted. So let's see. Hey, Doc, great to see you here. And yes, unfortunately, you can't, as I understand it, adjust the color. So otherwise, yeah, you could make it purple, but it's kind of purple at the moment actually. It's almost like the default is Doc purple. So it goes from sort of blue to purple. I wonder what else this does. Maybe I'm missing something else that this can do. I don't think you can adjust the actual color of it though. So still speaking on this one over USB at the moment. Hey, Peter, how are you doing? Hope you're doing great. Hey, Neil as well, great to see you too. Whilst we are here, let me just switch back to, I'll come back to your question. Let me just switch back to the rocaster minute. So we'll go to this one. So now you should be hearing me on this one. I've got to unplug my headphones so that I'm monitoring the right thing. That's better. So now I'm back on the pod mic USB. So that is this one. And the question, any recommendations for arms or stands for these microphones? Yeah, so I'm using here, I've got the, if we come back to this view on my cameras out of focus, that's not helpful. Let me switch to this view. So this one that I've got here, going over the top of me, this is the Algato Wave Mic Arm. And I actually, for the longest time, I was only using this one down here, which is, let me just move this microphone out of the way and maybe move these boxes. The Algato Wave Low Profile Arm is this one that my shore's on. And I really love this because the microphone's sort of out of the way, but when I sort of pull it in, it's sort of low profile, but I can still get my hand underneath it. So when this is, if I get this out of the way, when this is coming in front of me, I can still clearly see everything down below on my desk. It's not getting in the way. But it's better for me in that sense than one of these sort of over the top arms, something like this because this does feel kind of like it's intruding on my space. The reason why I've got this one though is because I recently bought this, I'm really happy with the quality of it, but I've got a whole nother scene, which is for some other stuff that I'm gonna be starting doing. In fact, my live stream next week will probably be on this particular scene. Let me just go to it to show you. So I've got another whole scene set up and basically this microphone that I'm speaking to you on now, let me switch back to my shore for a second. Basically, this microphone will be over here somewhere. So this is for another series of content I'm gonna be doing, but this is what I bought this microphone arm for is for that purpose. So yeah, the quality though of this, the Elgato Wave arm is this one that I'm holding just off to my side. Whilst this one that the shore is on is the Elgato Wave Low Profile arm. Both of these are absolutely solid. I really like them because one of the issues that you sometimes have with microphone stands is either they don't stay in the position that you want them to be in. They kind of droop or whatever, they just don't hold different microphones if you switch out different microphones. One thing I've found about both of these, the Elgato Wave and the Elgato Wave LP is that they just sort of stay where you put them. There is a little counterweight that you can add onto this if you've got like a really light microphone. But basically this just stays like exactly where I put it. I really like the cable management. So there's this little channel that runs along the top and then you just drop the cable in and it snaps in. So it looks really clean as well, I think. The Elgato Wave LP has like a magnetic top to it. So there you go. You always keep your little Allen key on a magnet underneath it. But this allows you to basically just pop off that top, drop in your cable and then that sits on the top of it. So those are both really solid. However, there is another really great one which is, let me just pull this up because I'm actually using this. One of my cameras all out of focus today. That's weird. So anyway, let me come back to this one. Let me try and see if I can just fix this quickly. They're not behaving. Let me come back to this view. And what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna try and see if I can just zoom out. So by the way, there's that other side where that other view was. But what you might be able to see on here though is if I just maybe try and zoom in a little bit, you can see that I've got another mic arm that I'm actually using for my overhead camera shot. So this one just over here, right above my head that I've got one of my off-spot tail hairs as my top down shot. But it is that that arm is currently mounted to the back of something weird's going on with my apologize for this, my focus. But you should be able to see I've got this arm coming up and out over there. And that is a really great mic stand as well, which I did use for a while as well because it is both a low-profile stand but also a regular over-the-top stand. So let me just check this for you. It's called the Avermedia Live Streamer, something. Let me just pull it up for you so that you can see. And it's got this really great mechanism where it can either move in all the same directions as you'd expect one of these kind of like over-the-top ones but then the whole thing can just bend down and then it can be a low-profile arm as well. I'll just find it for you. Avermedia Live Streamer, what's it called? Live Streamer Arm, I think something like that. Let me just put my processing back on in this one because I realize you're getting, there's no noise gate on this right now and also you're getting some other unwanted noise coming through. I will get the link for this to drop into the chat. It is actually in the description as well. So if you watch it on the replay, the link is in the description as well. So this is the Avermedia arm. I really love this. I mean, this is another one that feels really solid as well and the only reason I ended up switching to this one is I had both of them and I wanted to use the Avermedia for my top-down shot but actually the thing about it as well that's really useful and if I just come over to this page, I've dropped the link in, the other thing about it that's really useful is you can do this thing where it's basically a combination, whoops, I didn't notice this. You can do this thing where it's kind of like not a low-profile but not a high one. It's kind of hard to explain and I had this great thing where it was basically sort of reaching around the side of my roadcaster, mounted behind it and it didn't need to be quite as low so that it was coming in at a particular low angle but also didn't come right over the top. I can't really, I'm not explaining this, I'm not doing it justice but it is a great arm and it's also considerably longer in fact as well. So if you need something that has got that extra length to it then this gives you basically an extra foot of reach over the low-profile arm from Algato. So yeah, it's a really great solid option and this also has nice cable management as well. So in the same way that the Algato one over here has the strips that just pop into the top of it, the Avermedia's got basically the same thing. So in the top of the bar here, you can maybe just sort of make out, there's like a little bump or just above the Avermedia logo. That's actually where there's a channel into the arm and then there's a little thing that just fits into the top of it like the Algato one as well. So cable management's really good and again, it's another one that just feels solid, it doesn't move, it can support whatever weight, there's little tensioning screws that you can tighten up to adjust the tension of it but yeah, it's just rock solid, it's not going anywhere either. So either this one or the Algato Wave or the Algato Wave LP are all good. Let's see where we're up to in the chat. Oh, you're right, yeah. So the thing about the MB, the USB, yeah, it's not like it's a really old mic but so yeah, I don't know the the decision for that as well. And there we go. Doc's here with the answers of course. I'm glad you're here to give me all the actual facts. The MB7 was ready before 2020 so it was too late for them to, ah, that makes sense. It is not odd that they haven't considered doing an upgrade because yeah, it is a sticking point with a lot of people. It sucks, not the appropriate cable to micro to C is only eight dollars for a good one so that's not a big deal really. Yeah, it's just, that's it, it's just irritating, isn't it? And it's not like, it's a bit like when people say, why isn't this thing Thunderbolt 4 now as opposed to Thunderbolt 3 or whatever? It's like, well, it's not really transferring that much data anyway, so it doesn't really matter. So from a technical perspective, like you say, it's just an irritation as opposed to a necessity anyway. So it's totally, I get sure, there we go, you can get this on the screen. I get sure pre-production's all the time, so I know that Mike was ready way before the launch. Yep. Yeah, if you're gonna give any exclusives, then here is the place to do it, Doc. You heard it first. Let's have a look. Yeah, well, the micro USB, they are flimsy and that's exactly the issue that I run into. Literally, the end of it bent by, and it wasn't like a little bit as well. It was, I posted a picture on Instagram of it where I put a line to show it against, you know, vertical and the line was kind of like off like that. That's how much the actual end little metal part had bent within the plastic. So yeah. So there we go. You'll have to send me a message, after send me an IM afterwards, Doc. I'm intrigued now. So there we go. We're back on the short MV7 now. And yeah, this is all I'm intending to do today. I am gonna go and do a, oh, I'm sorry. Let me just pull this up because this is a really valid thing to point out. Have you used the Samsung Q2U? I haven't. Now I'm intending to get one specifically for this comparison because yeah, the Samsung Q2U, let me just pull that up because that is another one that is a dual USB XLR. Let me just pull it up. And that always gets great reviews as a great alternative. And that is also a dual USB XLR. It's more of a, I'm gonna say a traditional looking microphone, like, you know, more of a handheld thing as opposed to, well not handheld, but you get the idea. You know what I mean? That kind of microphone as opposed to a sort of arm mounted broadcast type mic. I'm using the wrong terminology here. Do forgive me. Mixing my words. But yeah, that is also dual XLR and USB on the back as well. And I know that that always gets good reviews as a, you know, for the price and everything. So yeah, I'm intending to just get one of those just to do another test because like I say, I don't want my, I'm not gonna get into doing famous last words, a whole load of micro views. Maybe that's just the ultimate place where channels like this end up going, talking about microphones and so on. But like, as I say, I do think that there are potentially, you know, diminishing returns when it comes to things like this. You know, it should be more about the content necessarily than these slight little things. But yeah, the Q2 is great from by all accounts and Doc is conferring that as well. I'll take that as the compliment in which it was intended. Yeah, ugly, but amazing. Well, thank you very much. That's shirtable, isn't it? So yeah, what I'm gonna do though is I'm gonna do an actual full sort of video review of both the, I've already done reviews of the PodMic and the MV7. But I'll definitely do a review of the Feel World. I still can't say that for some reason. It always seems a mouthful to me. This one, the Feel World PM1, podcast microphone one, which as I say, just come with this stand which is a nice little touch. So if you're looking for something just to take out the box and it's got everything you need, then it's got this stand. Having said that, it's a little bit low. So the stand is a little bit low. And then you've got this one which is the Fifine Tank 3. I don't know where the name, where the name Tank comes from. This is the Tank 3. I've not tried the Tank 2 or Tank 1, but yeah, it certainly is built like a tank. It is very, very solid. And oh, you're Florence, you're using the Q2U. Well, that's enough to me. It must be good then. So yeah, with that said, what I will do is I'll wrap it up. If anyone's got any final questions or comments or feedback or anything like that feel free to drop them in. Neil also is agreeing about the micro HDMI. Yes, not a great option. And let's take a look at where we're up to with the chat. If you've got any questions about these, by the way, the best place to leave comments or questions after the show is actually to go into Discord and I'll leave a link on the screen here for how you can join the Discord. I honestly feel it just a nightmare keeping up with YouTube comments and especially when the YouTube comments are generally, it's great to get people saying, this was a great video, it really helped. That's nice. But then when it becomes to, basically, this was a great video, but my specific issue is X, Y and Z and then it becomes like a tech support comment. Then yeah, just answering those on a one-off basis in YouTube comments when there are so many of them is really a tricky thing for me personally to manage. What that means is I kind of don't manage it and I just direct people over to here. So come in here, drop your questions in the Take One Tech community and then the benefit of that is that everyone gets to benefit from it rather than it just being a one-on-one tech support. If you do want a more in-depth consultation then you can also book those, of course, from my tech website, takeonetech.io slash consultation. If you just want to see if I might be able to help you, then there's a free consultation call there for 20 minutes. We can just have a chat and see if I am the person to help you and then obviously after that, we can go into a paid consultations which are available from there. Or if you want ongoing support, whilst I'm doing all of my little pop-ups, you can also check out the Take One Tech Academy. So there we go. I'm already on that dock, so yes, the camp, Katie's already filled me in on that, so I'll be there and I will be, yeah. Yes. In fact, what I said to it was, you try and stop me. I will be there. I'll be banging on the door, either way. So yeah, all looking forward to that. Hey, Victor, great to see you here as well. Okay, so with that said, thanks all for stopping by. As I say, check out the Discord if you've got any follow-up questions and I will see you all in the next, yep. Until next time, have a great day and thanks also to all of my channel members. I really appreciate all of your support. See you all next time.