Behringer C-2 Studio Condenser Microphones (Pack of 2)

These mics get mixed reviews depending on users' expectations. Are these the best mics you'll buy? No. Can you buy better? Absolutely. Are they worth £40? Yes! If I'd spent £200 on these mics I'd have described them as noisy and disappointing, but these are not expensive high quality mics. They are budget mics, and as such they are great. I compared them to an AT835b (shotgun mic, worth much more), and for indoor use found them a good substitute with similar sensitivity. Size is the first thing that hits you, as they're look tiny at just 9.5cm long and 2cm wide. Outdoors, they're not so good as they have poor wind/pop rejection. They do have a little internal hiss if you wind the gain up, but they have a sensitivity of -41dBV, so you shouldn't need crazy amounts of gain, and the specs imply they are good for loud sources (up to an SPL of 140dB at 1kHz, 10dB more with the cut engaged - that's airshow loud). They are a little "toppy" above 10kHz, but you can EQ that out if necessary. I'm not disappointed with these. For the money you get a pair of functional mics, good for drums, guitar amps, crowd mics, and "off axis" speech (so your plosives don't pop the living daylights out of them) for indoor video (eg about 8 inches above and in front of a subject, out of shot).

Whilst I wouldn't say I was a professional music producer, after studying music tech at college I do feel confident in being able to determine whether something is of an acceptable quality for an enthusiast on a budget. I really do think these things are great. Getting two microphones for £45, I wasn't really sure what I was going to receive. Especially when I have used fairly expensive mics (nothing ridiculous costing, mainly mid range rode and shure microphones) at college and further at University. This was exacerbated when I opened the package to find that they are small, I mean really small. They are fairly heavy for their size and feel of nice quality in the hand with the aluminium finish. They come in a 'nice for the price' carry case that seems to be well padded to protect them well enough with all of the accessories and the mics themselves packing up into a small area, great for on the move recordings. Small note about the incidental pairing stand that they come with, I thought (quite possibly stupidly) that the stand would act as a table mount and hold the mics up. Whilst that is the case without xlr's attached, attached it topples over straight away. Not an issue as a stand is better practice anyway but thought id mention it. Having quickly set them up through my alesis io2 audio interface onto cubase I set about recording my acoustic guitar and vocals as well as just general sampling. They sound great, nice and clear free from distortion etc. Really excellent, especially considering the price point. They need a fair amount of gain from my alesis to get a decent signal through to cubase but once that's sorted they record acoustic guitars very well. For such a small diaphragm they do a good job of picking up low end, maybe too much so when it comes to vocals (probably just my untrained boomy voice haha) for my taste. I do plan to try them out recording a brass band and continue to use them as acoustic bedroom mics. Whilst im not going to lie and say these things are big boy killers (they really arent) they will do a brillinat job of semi professional music production, which in the end is exactly what i bought them for, for a fraction of the price of two Audio Technica Mics or other budget options.

Considering the price, they're great mics. I've only used them for drumming so they're blended with much more expensive mics but for the money, these are amazing.

I bought the Behringer Studio Condenser C-1U microphone to improve the quality of my home music recording efforts without going to the expense and complication of adding a pre-amp box. The selling point for me was the USB connection which is powered by phantom power directly from the computer. The mic arrived a month ago (great customer service from Blue Aran) and it has taken me a longish time to achieve acceptable results. The main problem (which I discovered is not unique to me) is that the mic is on the quiet side. To produce the flat, quality sound I was hoping for requires all relevant computer settings to be turned up to the maximum. In the course of doing so, I ran into problems with my Realtek Audio Manager. It is quite possible that the resulting glitches are due to my particular system components, but the fact remains that for me it was not quite the "plug and play" experience that was promised. I have e-mailed Behringer customer support a couple of days ago and have not yet received a response, so I cannot comment on that. One point I would like clarified is that the LED light indicating that phantom power is being received is always green on the mic (I have tried it in 8 different USB ports on 2 different computers) whereas the documentation says it should be blue. Whether this indicates insufficient power from the USB port is something I would be interested in knowing. On the plus side, this is a very solid and good-looking piece of gear, heavy and substantial in feel and offering the kind of convenience and low-cost solution I was looking for. It came with an adapter (but you still need to buy a mic stand) and a software CD. There is Juice software for podcasting, Kristal and Audacity for recording and editing. These last two are free software. Kristal's last version (dating back to June 2004) is still available for free download online but it's handy to have it on CD. As for Audacity, I prefer to use the latest version directly from Sourceforge. The best advice I can offer to anyone who is encountering similar issues to mine with the C-1U is to resist the temptation to shout or play into it at close range, as condenser mics are very sensitive to such assaults. Five to six inches away is the recommended distance otherwise you get distortion. What finally worked for me was to separate the input jacks in the Control Panel, Audio Manager (I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium), turn the microphone (input) volume to the maximum in Audacity (having given Audacity control of the mic), and respect the 5-6 inch distance for both guitar and voice. I then apply amplification and/or normalization to the resulting recorded sound wave. My research indicates that the problem of the low sound is common to other condenser mics of the USB variety, and I have seen suggestions that Vista is not very user-friendly in that respect. With my current set-up, I am happy with the sound I am getting, there is no hiss and I love the ease of the USB connection. The three stars rating reflects all the hoops I had to jump through to get acceptable results. Behringer C1U Studio Condenser Microphone with USB

趣味の範囲で使うには文句の付け所無し！もう1本欲しくなるかも。。。

Excellent Micro plus que satisfaisant. Vraiment impressionné par la qualité.

عالي الدقه ولاكن افضل ال xlr افضل مع كارت صوت وذالك لصوت افضل

Great build quality, with respectable case. At the end of the day, an overpriced mic has never been a big factor in a great song. I once used a high school musical usb microphone from the wii, and have had people comment on my songs. Put your money into a good preamp and AD/DA converter. This mic will hold its own with the industry loved Rode NT1, and Shure SM7B.

I've researched and researched on budget mics. My budget was about $100 for a decent studio mic for my music hobby. I originally opted for an AKG Perception 120 but then I came across the Behringers. I picked the C-3 because of the multi-pickup patterns, roll-off and filter switches which allows for wider sonic possibilities. I was reluctant to purchase because there hasn't been any reviews for it. But I eventually decided to give it a shot because one, the price difference between this and the AKG was about $40 which allowed me to buy a mic stand and an XLR cable. Not bad. Secondly, it was a hobby. All I needed is a much better mic than the one I had which was a cheap $9 mic. Physically, it's heavy, giving it that robust, hefty feel but I won't be too adventurous knocking it around. Didn't come with a manual but you can download one from their website. Comes with a foam padded case, which is nice. The mount is a bit flimsy, I think. You can only screw the mic in and position it on its swivel in such a way that the mic doesn't droop because of its weight but it's not a big deal and there are other ways to work around it. Testing the mic... so far so good. I've only recorded one song with it. It is indeed far better than the cheap old dynamic mic I had. And since I haven't used any other mic in its class I have no way of comparing it. But in my opinion, it provided a clear reproduction on vocals. The mic's directional patterns worked as it should. It was able to filter out my noisy PC which I thought was amazing. I still need to learn proper mic'ing techniques though. I believe I can get even better results from it as I learn how to work a small home studio. I will update this review as I get more familiar with the C-3. The reason why I give it four stars is because I really like it but I can't give it 5-stars until I'm able to compare it with other mics in its class and price range. I won't give it anything less because in my opinion, it sounded great and I'm happy with it so far. If you'd like to have a listen on the results, here's the link to my Reverbnation page: [...] The song using the C-3 is a cover on Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Excuse my singing though. I'm a bit rusty. The rest of the songs on the playlist were recorded on different mics which I plan to re-record using the C-3 as well. UPDATE 03/16/10: Oops. I guess Amazon doesn't allow active links. Well, go to[..] and search artist Mario Gozum. UPDATE 02/14/15 I upgraded my rating to 5-stars. Really happy with this mic. It's not a "magic mic" that will turn your music into grammy winners. You need to learn proper recording techniques and know the limits of your equipment and software to get good results. I'm not one to blame the equipment for bad results. This microphone does what it says it does and I'm happy and satisfied with my recordings so far, using this mic. I have two songs on Reverb Nation dot com. Just find artist Mario Gozum or Pill to hear how the mic sounds the way I recorded and processed it. I use a Line6 UX2, Reaper and free VST plugins.