CAD AUDIO U7 USB Desktop Condenser Recording Microphone

I spent a lot of time trying to find the best USB microphone and this is it. I wanted a microphone primarily for Skype and other VOIP calls and net meetings, as well to be able to record certain meetings. I have the Logitech WebCam Pro 9000, which is a great webcam but in my opinion not a great microphone. I wanted a USB microphone that would minimize the "echo effect" as well as the "scratch effect" certain net meetings would produce. The "echo effect" is pretty much what it sounds like and is most prominent when someones speakers are turned up too high, and the "scratch effect" is when the volume of your voice is too high for the microphone and it creates a scratching noise on the other end (sometimes happens in Skype). Given this microphone is a "condenser" I must say it has helped out dramatically. I have this microphone in a conference room as well as my office, and it really does a good job at producing incredibly clear tone consistent sounds; it works well at picking up the quiet sounds as well as reducing the louder sounds. The dimensions of this microphone are a little off as it's a little smaller than this page says. The dimensions are 4 x 3.25 x 1.1 inches. The microphone is obviously very easy to place. This microphone comes with a 10 foot USB mini B cable (the 5 pin cable which is the same cable that plugs into most Blackberries) and you can easily replace it with a shorter or longer cable. As for other microphones the closest contender i was able to find was the "MXL MXLAC404 High Quality USB Conference Room Microphone" which also looked like a very good microphone but i could not tell if the USB cable was replaceable, and it seemed a little big. I also have been using the "Logitech USB Desktop Microphone" which works well for the price (which is $20); I would say it is a good microphone for only one person that will be sitting at their desk talking and they don't mind having it right in front of them when they use it.

I'm a former audio engineer, so I know a thing or two about microphones and audio quality. I purchased this mic as a smaller and simpler alternative to lugging around a USB mic preamp and separate mic for location recording of interviews on my laptop. Overall I'm impressed - the sound quality is very good, the mic is small and unobtrusive. I was able to get it running without much on my mac under Mac OS and under Windows via Parallels. Windows required a few extra steps to recognize it, but hey - it's Windows so there's rarely such a thing as true plug & play. The blinking blue LED is a laughably bad design choice - in all my years of recording I've never seen a microphone manufacturer deem it necessary to add a blinking LED to a microphone. Seriously, I want to smack the person responsible for this decision. However, as others have noted it's easy to overcome this by sticking a little gaffers tape or electrical tape on the LED. Bottom line: very good sound quality in a small package, USB powered, and easy to use.

I actually used this mic to record music, but it needs to be in a room with a lot of reverb (e.g., a hall). The sound is pretty dry and crisp. Like the description says, this mic is best suited for speech, but works fine for music under the right conditions. It picks up sound well from multiple directions, and I haven't had any problems with the volume. The only thing I have against it is that it is not the best suited for the violin (it's harsh and a little bit tinny), but would be great for just about anything else if crispness, articulation, and a generally good sound is what you're after. Overall it's a surprisingly good mic, and hooking it up to your computer is easy.

We had a baby shower in Kansas City for our daughter in law who lives in Los Angeles. We called it a "cyber shower" in the invitation. She is in the 8th month of her pregnancy and didn't want to travel back. We hooked up the laptop to the Big Screen TV and both parties hooked up on [...] and it worked perfectly. We even both served the same food. It was almost like they were in the room. The gifts were sent to LA and she opened them for everyone while we watched and talked. I decided in advance to purchase this add-on mic because I felt the small one on the laptop would not be sufficient with a crowd talking all at once. The party in LA also had 2 additional showers with other relatives, 1 in NY and 1 in Lima, Peru. They said ours was the best because we were the only party with the added mic. They could not hear the other two parties very well as people were talking over each other. It was a great $65 investment and we will use it everytime we call. And it was delivered to the door without a glitch and free shipping. Could not have been more pleased.

We often have to do Skype video calls for our condo council meetings. The standard laptop built in mics did not pick up more than the 3 people seated the closest to the laptop. We tried the Sony ECM-F8 Electret Condenser Microphone with Flat, Boundary Effect Design, which was a noticable improvement, but just not quite good enough and the battery was a pain with different people responsible to set it up. This mike is a noticable improvement over the Sony and the range is better where we now hear all 7 members. If you need it for a small group of say 4 - 5 persons and one person is in charge of maintaining the battery and turning it on and not forgetting to turn it off, then the Sony should be good enough, but for our application this unit was worth the extra cost.