MXL AC-44 USB Boundary Conferencing Microphone - Black

Replace the earlier one after a coffee accident. This is an amazing Desk Mic. FORGET the boom and big mic for your home office, this on the desk works amazing.

For the price, this is a good boundary microphone for relatively close work. Set it on your desk while you’re in your chair and it’s fine. I wanted something for a group of 7 at a rectangular table. The person farthest away (about 8 feet) sounded the same as if using the mics built into the computer. So, if you want a mic for just you or maybe 3 people sitting fairly close together, this is a nice solution.

I'm not a sound engineer, but I have installed three of these in a noisy environment primary to voice control two computer systems. I think they are an excellent value. For conference calls they're da bomb. Voice control? All I can say is the weak link in the chain is definitely *not* the microphones.

The MXL AC-44 grabs audio clearly even when the talker is 25 feet away. Build quality is excellent. Reasonable price. One of my favorite microphones due to its performance and simplicity.

this is better than many mics of this style, but the audio quality — volume specifically — is still too low for general table-top use. the build quality is amazing overall, tho ... too bad it's not good at the one thing it's supposed to be good for: table-top mic use ... even at 2 feet, it's still too low to use.

This microphone is one of a kind in terms of portability. It is very compact and easy to travel with. It is extremely simple in design with no drivers or software needed for installation. It’s a simple plug and play and comes with an extremely long usb C cable. Despite the positives there are a few issues with a strictly plug and play device. It has no way to adjust the gain. There is no software or knob on the microphone. This means what you hear is what you get. Your video calling software may be able to adjust it slightly, but typically it’s not good enough. I found that i sound a lot quieter using this microphone compared to my Blue Yeti. There is a built in noise cancelling that you can’t turn off which will automatically lower all the surrounding sounds, including your voice. This coupled with no way to adjust the gain is bothersome. The sound quality is worse than the Blue Yeti, but they’re the same price (or cheaper on sale). I purchased my Yeti about 4 years ago on sale for less than 80 dollars. The Yeti sound quality is superb. This sound quality is okay compared to it. People I’ve video chatted with say my microphone sounds far away. I’ve tried moving it right in front of my mouth and they say it has the same issue. This doesn’t have that crisp ASMR quality. You can’t attach a pop filter on it due to the odd shape. It advises you to put something over it to prevent moisture from entering the mic and potentially damaging it. There’s also no way to attach this to a standard mic stand. I definitely wouldn’t use this for gaming or live streaming as the quality is only decent and there’s no way to adjust the microphone. This would be fine for your simple zoom conference calls. I’d only advise this if you are only concerned about portability. There are better options if you looking for a permanent microphone setup.

MXL is the microphone arm of Marshall, the famous amp, speaker and headphone manufacturer. MXL manufactures a wide variety of USB microphones, ranging in price from $75 to $500. MXL is not an especially fine manufacturer of microphones. Their mainstay is podcast quality mics in the $100 range. And that's precisely what this mic is: podcast, Zoom, MS Teams-quality in a microphone, fine for use by professionals, but not a professional microphone. MXL suggests that this be used for making medical transcriptions. That could be a good use. It is sturdily made of an all-metal frame and mesh. it's small and can easily fit in a briefcase or sit below a monitor. Basically, this is a three capsule, 180-degree microphone made to be powered and record by being attached to a computer via a USB-A to USB-C cable (included). It is also possible to use a USB-C to USB-C cable, but that must be ordered separately. Sound capture quality is good-to-excellent for non-professional purposes. The usage case for this particular microphone is tied to its diminutive size: good sound at a conveniently portable and discreet size.

We use this mic for a variety of purposes but mainly for creating training videos. It's a solid USB mic but it not top of the line. We have an audio-technica mic that's similar that is better sound quality. It's about twice the price, but for professional uses that's not that much. I've also used as a conference call mic and it worked great for that. Overall it's a solid mic with good sound quality. If you're looking for _great_ sound quality you probably need to spend a bit more money. However if you're just doing a podcast or basic video production, it should fine.