List Price: $154.00
Sale Price: $99.00
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- Plug and Play USB Connectivity allows the convenience of digital recording
- Provides +48V Phantom power for use with condenser microphones
- Includes Padded, zippered pouch and USB cable (3m / 9.8ft)
- Monitor Mix Control for blending microphone and playback audio
- Integrated pre-amp with Microphone Gain Control allows control of input signal strength
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I do a lot of podcast so this will be a good thing for me to use in the future.I figured out the turning my sound card input gain structure down almost all the way and hitting the preamp as hard as I could gave the best signal to noise ratio.
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I purchased this specifically to see if I could use this with Dragon Naturally Speaking and hopefully improve my recognition accuracy by some tiny amount. I can't say if it succeeds at that or not; Dragon is one contrary beast of a program. Nonetheless, when I use this for other purposes, such as simple voice recording, I've noticed nothing but clean sound and plenty of gain.There are a number of presumably comparable devices out there made by the likes of OSP, Marshall, Alesis, Lightsnake, and others. I started by purchasing Marshall's XLR-USB adapter and found it had a really weak signal that usually needed to be normalized at a MUCH higher volume. I sold that at a small loss on eBay so I could try something else and this was it. (To be fair, it appears that Marshall has re-designed their USB adapter and I think the second version may have addressed this concern.)
The reviews I've read on the OSP and Lightsnake adapters seem to indicate they are not really balanced input, and that inside the box the 2nd and 3rd pins (hope I recall that correctly) are soldered together just like in a simple bal-unbalanced adapter. I don't believe that's the case here.
So far I totally disagree with other reviewers here claiming it's noisy. I've observed no noise.
Sturdy, solid construction. Has some heft to it; in fact, a bit heavy for its size. You really don't want to attach it to a mic directly if you intend on holding it very long, especially if you're a young aspiring starlet. :-)
My only minor detractor is I wish the phantom power button were designed so it's difficult to press by accident. This is the single most overlooked design flaw in mic preamps in general. You can press the phantom power button by mistake and according to some authorities, destroy a very expensive mic by accident. I can't afford many quality mics and so this isn't much of a risk for me. :-)
I have tried and presently own a handful of mic preamps and USB adapters, including the ART USB Dual Pre and an Edirol UA-25EX, and have tried a variety of higher-end USB soundcard devices. This compares pretty favorably with any of them, given its simple purpose. I think as far as usb-powered mono xlr-usb adapters go, you're not likely to do much better presently. You can certainly get a cheaper one, but this is clearly built to Shure's solid design standards and will outlast any of them.
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The Shure X2U is rugged, sounds great, and it works EXCELLENT for what it is designed for: connecting a microphone to a computer. Because it has a gain control, it also works great for connecting to a line-level output of a sound console. It's basically an high-quality external sound card.Phantom power
True Mic or Line level input
Plug-and-play compatible with Mac and Linux
Headphones can be connected to monitor yourself and/or the currently playing tracks
Light indicates signal present and clipping
If you use a $1000 microphone for studio quality recording, get something with more dynamic range. It's not studio quality, but it's close.
EDIT: If you're getting a lot of static, replace your USB cable!
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I dont understand how many people complain about hiss. I have used this mic for well over a year and have had no problems with hiss. I give this item 4 stars because its obviously not the best preamp you can get, but its well worth the buy. The phantom power this unit supplies is plenty powerful for condenser mics. I tested this preamp and compared to a presonus firebox, the sound reproduction of this is almost identical. So, dont let reviews trashing on this item steer you away from purchasing this product. Of course if you have a larger budget I would say to explore your options, but in the $100 range you will not find any better than this.
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