Review Elgato Wave Neo Review: I hope you got this as part of a bundle

[Admin]

The Elgato Wave Neo is a sub-$100 plug-and-play USB mic that's easy to set up — maybe a little too easy.

Elgato Wave Neo Review: I hope you got this as part of a bundle : Read more

 

[Giroro]

The Neat Bumblebee 2 is still a good deal, even though some larger influencers have noticed it and it's gone up to $30.
The 512 Audio Tempest will get you a full sized capsule and shock mount at $50 (junk stand though).
You can still get a Blue Ember or a 512 Audio Skylight ($50) along with a Mackie Onyx or other entry level interface for about $100 total.

Or there's about 100 billion different (but the same) 24 bit /96khz USB mic kits on amazon that come with a boom arm/shock mount/pop filter all for under $50 - and plenty of them will sound about the same as what Elgato throws together out of the same cheap jellybean parts. A lot of them suck, but avoid anything with an "echo" knob and you'll probably do ok.

There's a lot of ways to get similar/better sound quality and/or ergonomics than this offering for the same or less money, as long as you shop around for sales/clearance avoid the "streamer" brand markup.

Elgato's whole thing right now is their software. Maybe its easier to use, but I dunno. It never seemed that special to me.
It's also a pretty big problem that Elgato made a side-address microphone that looks like an end address microphone. A lot of people are going to talk into the end of this like an SM7B, have absolutely no idea why it sounds terrible, and blame the microphone instead of their technique... But that also means a lot of people will return them quickly, so you'll probably be able to get a used one for pretty cheap.