Photograph: Pete Cottell
The interface is a light box of plastic about the size of a VHS tape or a self-help book you would buy at an airport bookstore. The front panel features two combo XLR quarter-inch input jacks, both with individual line and instrument level impedance selectors. A 48-volt switch enables phantom power for both inputs simultaneously, which is necessary to power the included condenser mic or Cloudlifter if you decide to go full-on Podbro and upgrade to a dynamic mic. There’s also a single quarter-inch TRS headphone jack and a three-way selector to decide whether direct mono, direct stereo or a USB signal feeds the dual-mono quarter-inch tip-sleeve output jack on the back of the box.
Each channel has its own gain knob on the top of the unit, with an indicator light below that flashes white when a signal is present and red when a signal is clipped. Each preamp has 55 dB of gain on tap, which is enough to turn even the meekest teams into audible, active participants in an NPC meeting. The knob’s movement is smooth and jitter-free until you reach the last 10 percent of its sweep, at which point some ambient digital noise appears as if it’s been turned on with a switch. This has too much gain for any practical application due to the amount of clipping, so it’s not a big concern for anyone who has spent 30 minutes or more dialing in their level and getting a feel for the thing.
a mic for the masses
The included condenser mic interface pairs well with the preamp. This is a unipolar large-diaphragm condenser mic, which in standard parlance means the metal mesh that covers the front of the mic, where you’ll want to point your voice, rather than the back. Condenser mics are more sensitive to ambient noise than a dynamic mic, which is both good and bad. A condenser mic works well at a shorter distance from your face than a dynamic mic, but you’ll need to boost the gain to pick up your voice at greater distances. It also picks up more background noise, which can lead to some embarrassing moments on a Zoom call when, say, the small flock of chickens living illegally in your neighbor’s garage start chirping nervously when a garbage truck hits the block. Fortunately, Zoom has good built-in noise suppression tools, so this was easy to address without any additional plugins or hardware.
The mic handles a standard male speaking voice quite well. I’m not yet fully trained on profound NPR-speak, but my standard tech-guy pattern is to broadcast as clear as a bell with the mic held 6 inches away from my face, and the gain knob turned up to about 3 o’clock. The mic doesn’t have a high-pass filter switch to remove low-end rumble from accidental bumps on the stand or mic, so if you prefer more gain and a little more distance of the mic from your mouth, you’ll have to be careful to avoid rumble that causes loud thumping noises.
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