FIFINE USB Podcast Microphone for Recording Streaming

This microphone is compact, elegant and provides professional grade performance - it is that good. Physical Construction: - All metal construction - very sturdy and solid build. - The 5" triangular metal base is very sturdy and has rubber pads underneath giving it a steady and slip resistant perch - this mic is solid. - There is a green LED on the front fact of the mic when the microphone is active. - Push the mute button and the green LED turns red to indicate the microphone is off. - The mute button operates silently but in the recording track, there is a muffled thump when the mute is activated but is not significant. - USB Cable - solid and well made. - The tilt of the mic may be adjusted by loosening the two knobs on the side of the body. The mic body still has a bit of play even when the knobs are fully tightened. Not a deal breaker but it could have had a better tighten and hold feature. Audio Performance and Frequency Response: - The FiFine mic was tested for voice recordings only and no musical instruments were used. - This microphone has only a cardiod pattern for pickup and it does exceptionally well. - The sound play back is clear, crisp without distortion and artifacts. - The microphone gain sensitivity can be set to drop the noise floor to achieve crystal clarity in your audio. - I used Audacity to record and play back recordings. A very useful tool to set the microphone gain for maximum clarity without being over driven. - With the mic tilted back facing my mouth straight on and the mic gain set at 25%, speaking at a distance of 6", the audio was clear without being over driven. This is monitored in real time by bar graphs and actual voice pattern plots. - Background noise rejection - Excellent! This was tested using a Bluetooth speaker placed 18" away at 10 o'clock position to one side of the mic and the volume set at pretty high (Using normal speaking voice level, a person sitting on the opposite side of the table would not be able to hear my voice as the speaker volume was set that high). As recorded on Audacity, the FiFine mic captured my voice clearly while rejecting 90% of the background music. The background music was heard faintly and did not compete at all with my voice spoken at a normal level. Impressive! Intended Microphone Application: - VoIP phone calls. - No feedback issues in using computer speakers 16" behind the microphone without using a headphone. Slight Negative Feature: - On the back of the microphone are the mic gain and headphone audio level adjustment knobs. These two knobs are the size of a pencil eraser and protrudes about the same dimension. The drawback is these knobs are smooth and have no knurling and this makes adjustments difficult. There is a indicating line on the face of these knobs to indicate position but it is rather difficult to see without a contrasting colored line. Fortunately, once these levels are set, you shouldn't have to mess with them very much and it is nice they are out of the way on the back side of the microphone. Final thoughts: This is one exceptional microphone for the price. Yes, there are features that are not available compared to the Samson G Track Pro but unless you really need those features, buy the FiFine mic as you will not give up any audio qualities. I have compared this directly with the Samson G Track Pro and it is very difficult to tell the G Track Pro is that much better from audio recordings made on Audacity. For those that want a great microphone that don't require an omni direction nor a figure 8 pattern, this is the microphone to get. The noise rejection test I did proved how exceptional this microphone really is.