Besides grinding my bones into dust for you lot to have the hottest gaming takes, I also host an anime podcast. For almost four years now, Rocketto Punchi Podcast has grown from a weird SoundCloud experiment with zero listens to a show with 500+ monthly listeners tuning into me and two of my best friends gab about nonsense for two hours.
As such, I need a microphone that'll help me do that, while also serving as a useful gaming and streaming mic. Let's be real - most of the time, you don't want or need a pricey studio mic and mixing board for your gaming setup. When it comes to a standalone PC mic for gaming, especially USB mics, most people are looking for something simple that they can plug in and not worry about. However, mics that market themselves on that simplicity often come up short in the sound department, which leaves you with a product that's simple, but lacking in features and overall quality.
Leave it to HyperX, then, to deliver a piece of tech that offers both great sound and easy set-up, wrapped up in a stylish package that prioritizes elegant simplicity. The SoloCast, a new offering from the Kingston subsidiary, is a quality mic that puts several of its pricier contemporaries to shame on most fronts. For the price of a new video game, you can get yourself a mic that sounds great and is built to last.
Its primary function as a gaming mic works as intended - and with all of the simplicity, most people are looking for with that. Plug this sucker in, slap it on the desk in front of you (or screw it into your mic stand,) and boom - you're off to the races, or deathmatches, or wherever your gaming fancy takes you. I haven't encountered any instances of difficulty or lack of responsiveness with games I've played so far, and teammates have reported my audio as being crystal clear. Frankly, using my Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 80 studio headphones in tandem with my mic has become my favorite way to game online, and I legitimately can't see myself going back to an integrated headset any time soon. It's that good.
But then, there's the other side of the coin: podcasting and streaming. Is this mic up to snuff, or are you better off investing a bit more cash? Well, hear for yourself. This latest episode of Rocketto Punchi was recorded with the SoloCast. For recording, I set the mic about 1.5-2 feet away from me while I sat on my exercise ball.
What immediately struck me with the SoloCast was the lack of ambient noise. While my own recording setup resulted in more echo and less clarity (blame the bead curtains,) the only real incidental noises you can pick up are my headphone cable bumping the mic and my own keystrokes. Other than that, the audio is distortion and static-free, with a clarity that I wouldn't necessarily expect from sitting that far back. Clearly, the audio isn't professional-grade or anything, but then, I'm the furthest thing from a professional.
Jokes aside, another thing I noticed are the good peaks on my track. Recorded in Audacity, my shrieking, obnoxious laughter and bad throat sounds didn't distort in the way they usually do, giving more clarity to my voice in the track. While a few things could be improved upon (my own volume, a pop filter, some gain tweaks, etc.) the audio ultimately proved to be a huge improvement over what it had been in the past, and I plan on continuing to use the SoloCast as my main mic.
Also worth noting was that I used this mic for interviews last week - recording through OBS and chatting through Discord. Everything recorded and went through clear as a bell, with no issues whatsoever.
What HyperX has done here, in my mind, is to offer the perfect package for people who want reliable, no-frills quality when it comes to their USB mics. Are you looking for an all-in-one affair - a mic that lets you podcast, stream, and game with your friends? Do you want to plug that mic into a USB jack and go to town, without having to worry about any extra setup? Do you want a sleek, stylish piece of tech that doesn't take up much space, for a reasonable price? If you answered yes to a single one of these questions, then the SoloCast is one of your best bets right now.