SAMSONC01U Pro - USB Studio Condenser Microphone with a Headphone Output for Zero-Latency Monitoring - Silver

For the time that I had this microphone, i had absolutely no issues with itI was skeptical about buying it, due to some reviews. However, none of these turned out to be true and those people must have been unlucky.Though the colours on the pictures show a hint of gold, that is almost invisible on the actual mic, which I personally like.The tripod doesn't tip over or anything, even though the mic is pretty hefty.If i were to point out a problem, it would be nitpicking, but here they areCons:The cable is short. Though it reaches perfectly behind my desk and to my pc, it would have troubles with a boom arm. However, for this price, that flaw is negligible.Pros:1 - Price. It's the cheapest high quality mic you'll get2 - Fully metal, making it seem very high quality3 - Headphone jack for 0 latency monitoring4 - Comes with an adapter to fit different stands5 - Plug and play; no sofware required, which makes it work perfectly fine with a PS4. I am not sure about Xbox though.Should you buy it? Absolutely yes, if you're looking for a cheap, high quality mic.

After much deliberation looking for a decent USB condenser mic for voice work, I went for this mic. I definitely don't regret it!My use case is using it as a vocal mic for recording podcasts and VoIP (Skype), at my desk at home, with a sprung boom arm, shock mount and pop sheild.The supercardoid pattern does a good job of rejecting sound off of centre. The capsule is very sensitive, and renders vocals with little colouration. In fact if anything it's a bit too sensitive! The gain is controlled via the sound driver on the computer, and I've found it need to be set very low (7-10%) for doing close mic vocal work. One slightly odd thing - if you have the volume set to less than about 5, some slightly weird gating goes under a certain threshold (about -50dB) - mostly not audible but if you're going to compress the recording you might hear bursts of noise. Turn the gain up to 7 or above and that seems to go away (at least, there's consistent background noise instead of weird gate-y background noise). Signal to noise is pretty good, too, and it sounds like the pre-amp is pretty decent, about as good as I would expect for a USB powered in-mic preamp. Unfortunately as it has no XLR output there's not the option to use an external pre and/or mixer, so you're slightly limited there. But really if that's the sort of thing you want to do, you really want to spend a bit more getting a standard condenser and a separate preamp (and/or USB interface).Bass tip up (proximity effect) is quite marked - you get a good boost any closer than about 15cm away. Fantastic for vocals, but if you're looking to record musical instruments you'll need to give it plenty of space to prevent the sound getting muddy (esp. miking the sound hole of an acoustic guitar). The built in windshield is fairly good, but I'm glad I invested in a proper pop shield for close vocal work.The build quality is great - very solid feeling, the bicolour LED indicator is bright enough to see without being blinding (like the fashionable ultra-bright blue LEDs you often see!). The headphone socket is very solid, no fear of breaking it with a tug on the lead. The USB socket feels very solid too - although unlike an XLR it's not locking - so you bear that in mind. The stand which it comes with does feel solid, and the mic does stay steady on it, seems a bit small for the weight - but maybe that's just preference.I'm using this with the shock mount (Samson SP01), which is pretty good quality too. The only slight niggle is that if you want headphones plugged in at the same time as using the shock mount, the headphone jack will interfere with the metalwork - easily solved if you rotate the mic around a little bit in the shock mount, but a bit annoying nonetheless. Also worth mentioning that if you have headphones connected to the mic, they're clearly not going to be isolated by the shock mount so you may need to be a tad careful with the headphone lead to stop it picking up handling noise.What would be nice is a carry case of some sort that fits the mic, USB lead and mini tripod stand - which isn't included.For a low cost mic, it's great value and might be suitable for a home studio or even a professional voiceover booth on a tight budget.

For the price it's a great entry level microphone. You really need to mess about with though to get the perfect sound quality. I bought it because I needed a semi-professional microphone for recording commentary over gameplay videos and I eventually chose this one over what seems like the gamers choice - the blue snowball.First off it's really heavy and big, the small stand it comes with can barely support it's weight and is prone to falling over. I've recently just bought the matching shock mount and a boom stand for it so I be able to see if they help with the recording quality.This microphone really does pick up everything and more often than not there is always that annoying white noise/hiss in the background, however I've recently just discovered noise-gating. In most audio editing programs (I use Adobe Audition) you will be able to set a 'gate' which will block out sounds below a certain decibel. Now I no longer have that background noise and it's crystal clean.I will say that it records voices rather quiet. Or maybe I just talk to quiet. I haven't found a way yet to increase the loudness at which it records but, I can always just increase it afterwards so It's not really a problem. It picks up vibrations off the desk or whatever surface you have it on really easily as well. Also, regardless of what it says in the description, this picks up noise in all directions. I live on a busy road and my desk is right next to the window. Even with double glazing this microphone still picks up the cars from outside.Overall though I am happy with it, the matching Pop filter advertised for it is a bit useless as the pops still come through but I'm planning on buy a professional one anyway.

I researched the many USB mics available before committing to this one, and I'm glad I chose the C01U. It's very well built, with a good weight and sounds amazing. I'm a singer songwriter using this mic to record demos to my iPad. You'll need to experiment with positioning but once you found the sweet spot the results are excellent. I position the mic on its stand on a table about two feet from the guitar, and it picks up the nuances of my playing and my vocals with ease. It delivers a consistent sound with loud passages sounding full and rich and the quieter parts clear and detailed.I've recorded into Audacity on my MacBook Pro, and also into GarageBand on my iPad mini. The mic doesn't require any additional power other than that provided by the iPad or laptop. I'm so pleased with this brilliant mic and would have no hesitation recommending it to anybody looking to make high quality recordings of their music.