Top 5 Best Wired Microphones | Articles | Audio and video equipment

Pho­to: Rode

An exter­nal micro­phone is required for high-qual­i­ty sound record­ing. If you plan to record videos for YouTube or are already doing it and want to improve the qual­i­ty of your con­tent, you should con­sid­er buy­ing an exter­nal micro­phone. Our rat­ing of the best wired micro­phones will help you make a choice. It includes but­ton­holes and gun micro­phones, the best mod­els in terms of price and qual­i­ty.

You can read about what types of micro­phones exist here.

BOYA BY-M1 is the best budget lavalier microphone in 2021

BOYA BY-M1 is the most afford­able pod­cast micro­phone. Pho­to: socialmaharaj.com

BOYA BY-M1 is a uni­ver­sal mod­el com­pat­i­ble with var­i­ous devices (smart­phones, cam­corders, exter­nal recorders, etc.). This omni­di­rec­tion­al con­denser micro­phone is suit­able for blog­gers, begin­ners and pro­fes­sion­al film­mak­ers and jour­nal­ists. Due to the high sen­si­tiv­i­ty, it is not nec­es­sary to place the but­ton­hole next to the speak­er’s face. For high-qual­i­ty sound, you need to choose the right dis­tance.

Pros:

• excel­lent val­ue for mon­ey — can be used both in a qui­et and in a fair­ly noisy place;
• rich equip­ment — pop fil­ter, clip, 3.5 mm to 6.3 mm adapter, case, LR44 bat­tery;
• ver­sa­til­i­ty — no addi­tion­al soft­ware is required for oper­a­tion, you can record in any pro­gram; many options for use — with a smart­phone, lap­top / com­put­er / tablet, recorder, cam­era, etc.;
• foam pads pro­tect against wind, inter­fer­ence and extra­ne­ous sounds;
• low price.

Minus­es:

• too long cable (6 meters), in some usage sce­nar­ios (for exam­ple, with a smart­phone) it will take a long time to wind up;
• there are reviews of prob­lems con­nect­ing to a com­put­er (it is best to con­nect to the back of a PC).

The cost of BOYA BY-M1 is from 1,590 rubles. This is the most bud­get mod­el in our selec­tion.

Rode VideoMic Pro Plus — the best on-camera microphone for recording videos on YouTube under 25,000 rubles

The Rode VideoM­ic Pro Plus has many fea­tures and easy oper­a­tion. Pho­to: digitalcameraworld.com

This Rode micro­phone is one of the best options in the price range for those who blog on YouTube or report on tik toks. This micro­phone pro­vides high-qual­i­ty clear sound.

Pros:

• the sound is clear, nat­ur­al, lit­tle noise. Good bot­toms add vol­ume to the sound;
• sev­er­al pow­er options — via USB, from the sup­plied bat­tery or two AA bat­ter­ies;
• ample oppor­tu­ni­ties — safe­ty record­ing on the sec­ond chan­nel, auto­mat­ic on / off when con­nect­ed / dis­con­nect­ed to the cam­era, two low-pass fil­ter (LPF) options for noise sup­pres­sion — 75 and 150 Hz, three sen­si­tiv­i­ty lev­els for dif­fer­ent dis­tances (-10, 0 and + 20 dB), high-fre­quen­cy boost, clear indi­ca­tion;
• detach­able cable.

Minus­es:

• high price;
• non-remov­able Rycote Lyre vibra­tion sus­pen­sion (damp­ens vibra­tions and back­ground noise).

Rode VideoM­ic Pro + costs from 23,900 rubles.

AKG Lyra (C44-USB) — USB microphone for games, streaming, podcasts

The design is styl­ish retro, many will like it. Pho­to: blog.landr.com

USB Desk­top Micro­phone for PC (Skype/Zoom, Games, YouTube Videos, Stream­ing and Pod­casts). This mod­el sup­ports 4 record­ing modes (front, front and rear, nar­row and wide stereo) and is com­pat­i­ble with any OS (Win­dows, Mac OS, iOS, Android). Through a spe­cial adapter, you can con­nect to the cam­era. The built-in pop fil­ter ensures noise-free sound trans­mis­sion.

The indi­ca­tion is clear, the Mute but­ton is there, as are the vol­ume con­trols for the micro­phone and head­phones.

Pros:

• uni­ver­sal sound — high-qual­i­ty, clear, suit­able for record­ing inter­views, streams, vocals and instru­ments;
• 4 oper­at­ing modes: front — front record­ing (for streams); front and rear — for inter­views; nar­row stereo — for record­ing a con­ver­sa­tion of 2–3 peo­ple or an instru­ment + vocals; wide stereo — for record­ing sev­er­al instru­ments, com­mu­ni­ca­tion of peo­ple not sit­ting near­by, etc.;
• use­ful fea­tures — 3.5 mm jack for direct mon­i­tor­ing, micro­phone and head­phone vol­ume con­trol, con­ve­nient mode selec­tion with clear indi­ca­tion, back­lit Mute but­ton.

Minus­es:

• aver­age build qual­i­ty — par­tial­ly plas­tic case and reg­u­la­tors, the lat­ter have a slight back­lash, there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty of rapid wear;
• You can­not adjust the ratio between record­ing and back­ground vol­ume dur­ing direct mon­i­tor­ing.

The cost of AKG Lyra (C44-USB) is from 8,190 rubles.

Sennheiser MKE 400 is a good external microphone for YouTube

The Sennheis­er MKE 400 micro­phone is ide­al for vlog­gers or begin­ner video­g­ra­phers. Pho­to: techradar.com

A dis­tinc­tive fea­ture is its com­pact size (weight is only 60 g) and good record­ing qual­i­ty. This gun micro­phone is suit­able for smart­phone and cam­eras, con­nects via 3.5mm jack.

Pros:

• nat­ur­al, live sound with­out dis­tor­tion, high-qual­i­ty voice trans­mis­sion and excel­lent noise rejec­tion;
• use­ful fea­tures — low-pass fil­ter, 3 sen­si­tiv­i­ty set­tings (default, ‑20 and +20 dB), head­phone jack for direct mon­i­tor­ing and vol­ume con­trol;
• long bat­tery life, replace­able bat­ter­ies — pow­ered by 2 AAA bat­ter­ies, the charge of which is enough for approx­i­mate­ly 100 hours of oper­a­tion, low bat­tery warn­ing 3 hours before full dis­charge;
• small size and weight — even with a vibra­tion sus­pen­sion and wind pro­tec­tion built into the case, the micro­phone is lighter and more com­pact than most com­peti­tors;
• rich equip­ment — 2 cables (2 meters and spi­ral) for a smart­phone and a cam­era, addi­tion­al wind pro­tec­tion and a soft case.

Minus­es:

• there are clicks when switch­ing modes — it is worth con­sid­er­ing dur­ing record­ing.

Sennheis­er MKE 400 costs from 15,950 rubles.

Boya BY-DM2 is the best lavalier microphone for Android smartphones

Boya BY-DM2 is a uni­ver­sal micro­phone for smart­phones with USB Type‑C inter­face. Pho­to: Boya

This mod­el is a vari­a­tion of the BOYA BY-M1 for smart­phones with­out a 3.5mm jack. This exter­nal lava­lier micro­phone con­nects to your phone via USB Type‑C. Boya BY-DM2 costs more (5,290 rubles ver­sus 1,590 rubles), but still belongs to the bud­get seg­ment.

Pros:

• sound qual­i­ty for the price — the voice writes well, there is less noise than the BOYA BY-M1;
• USB‑C port — uni­ver­sal option for smart­phones with­out a 3.5 mm jack (saves on buy­ing an adapter);
• hard case includ­ed.

Minus­es:

• long 6‑meter cable;
• not suit­able for recorder and cam­era.

For iPhone own­ers, the BOYA BY-DM1 mod­el is pro­vid­ed.