Decent (and fairly cheap) USB desktop microphone?

[Mont Blanc]

Hi,

I work from home and my current microphone for Teams is the one that is built into my webcam, and whilst it sounds pretty clear (I sometimes do test calls on Teams to check) I would be interested to see if anyone can recommend a cheapish separate USB desktop mic. The sort of thing people would use for streaming or podcasts.

Thanks

[Mr Pointy]

It's not quite the answer to your question but we have found Jabra conference speakers to work really well (there's a mic in there as well obv):
https://www.jabra.com/en-gb/business/speakerphones...

I have the older 510 & you can find them for around £35 on ebay.

Note that you probably want the Miscrosoft version not the Universal UC version, although I'm not sure what the difference is:
https://www.jabra.com/_/media/Jabra_VXi_Product-Do...

Edited by Mr Pointy on Monday 1st July 12:22

[dhutch]

Just make sure its isolated from the keyboard!

[Mont Blanc]

Mr Pointy said:

It's not quite the answer to your question but we have found Jabra conference speakers to work really well (there's a mic in there as well obv):
https://www.jabra.com/en-gb/business/speakerphones...

I have the older 510 & you can find them for around £35 on ebay.

Note that you probably want the Miscrosoft version not the Universal UC version, although I'm not sure what the difference is:
https://www.jabra.com/_/media/Jabra_VXi_Product-Do...

Edited by Mr Pointy on Monday 1st July 12:22

Thanks, I will have a look at that

The reason I'm asking is that I was attending an online training course the other day and the trainer was incredibly clear, like listening to a presenter on Radio 4 and whilst we were just chatting during a break I asked what microphone he was using, and he held it up in front of the camera top show me. He said it was really cheap one off Amazon, something like £25 but he couldn't remember what the name of it was and there was no decipherable brand name on it.

It looked a bit like this kind of thing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Microphone-Veetop-Condens...

My home office is really quiet, even if there is noise in the house, so I don't really need the compression and background noise rejection of a Jabra, but would prefer outright speech quality. I know some of the Jabra mics can sound a little bit 'speakerphone' to the person on the other end.

[RSTurboPaul]

Something from Shure might fit the bill, although the definition of 'fairly cheap' will of course depend on just how well one dominates the stairs

[Mont Blanc]

RSTurboPaul said:

Something from Shure might fit the bill, although the definition of 'fairly cheap' will of course depend on just how well one dominates the stairs

Oh I don't do much stair dominating these days... Not since the incident at the school.

I was just hoping for something up to around £40 mark that sounded clear for speech. There is always a limit on how much I'm willing to spend on my work! I've had some Shure earphones years ago, and they were brilliant, but my colleagues don't need to listen to anything as spendy as a Shure mic.

[Bujinkhal]

Blue snowball are bloody good. Bit more than £25 though.

[mikef]

I recently gave away an Audio-Technica USB2020+ with isolating stand, when I retired. That was excellent kit, although it could pick up the faint noise of passing traffic