Condenser Microphone

Great all in one solution if you don't want to go down the path of an audio interface or if you are starting out. Also works great on XLR so is ideal if you want to upgrade your set up in the future!!

I'm fairly impressed with this microphone. I plugged it into my laptop (a Macbook Air, but running OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because I really dislike MacOS). It was automatically detected and picked as the default input device. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out why sound wasn't coming out before I realized there's an on/off switch. Sigh. Turning it on didn't work. More sigh. Turns out, it needs to be turned on when it's plugged in, then the on/off switch works as a mute just like you'd expect. I've played with it some both as a digital source and an "analog" mic, and it works, again, exactly like you'd expect. It picks up my voice really well, and doesn't pick up any background noise. I'm just in a cluttered office here, not some professional sound studio. I'm simply using USB, not the XLR cable and a real mixer. And it works exceedingly well. It has some real mass to it, so it feels like it's well made. And the volume up/down buttons Just Work on my Linux machine. The audio monitor output also works well; I plugged in my Sennheiser PXC-550 headphones using their wired connection, and not only does all the background noise I can hear (several computers with fans running, etc) go away, but I get what seems to be zero-latency feedback of my voice. I'm quite happy about that. For the fun of it, I moved over to a Windows machine and tested the same - it works just as well there. But who wants to do anything important with Windows? :) Overall, I'm happy with this. Off to record some training material now, and maybe even start up a podcast!

This microphone was suggested to me by my podcast co-host. I was using my USB headset for many years and I was feeling the need to upgrade without going into the expensive items for podcasting. This is a great entery level microphone that can grow with you as you decide if you want to be a more serious podcast person. This fits the people who know that your audio is very important for zoom meetings and want to sound better.

After reading many reviews and watching lots of review videos, and finally experiencing it for myself, I can now say without any doubt that the Samson Q2U is the best budget Mic out there today. If you are starting off, and you want something affordable to kick start your journey in podcasting and streaming, this is your gadget. Certainly the best value for money. I am so glad I got this. And oh, I got it like 4 or 5 days ahead of scheduled date, so thank you Amazon team :-)

Product received as described. Microphone seems sturdy and durable. Need to experiment with different environments to see how recording quality affects.