CAD Audio U9 USB Mini Condenser Microphone – Cardioid Capsule with 180° Swivel, 3.5 mm Headphone Jack & LED Indicator

For my win10 PC connected to my flatscreen in my living room (lets call it a HTPC+), I love using Cortana with this microphone. My constraints were that it had to perform like the amazon echo (eg. omni-directional, work from a large distance, etc), but it needed to be much cheaper than the echo dot itself. At the time of writing, echo dot was ~$50 and this mic was ~$25 In my opinion, the mic works great. For example: I spoke "hey cortana ...show me images of el conquistador in puerto rico" (which, by the way, is an awesome place) as well as other visually interactive phrases ("...start subnautica", "...how do I fix a toilet", etc) and it picked up every word of my very american voice from 15ft away from center. The mic is advertised as omni-directional, but it has a swivel head which makes it seem directional. Regardless, I stood 15ft away then 7 feet off from center (ie. 25 degree angle from the mic according to some trigonometry) and cortana was also able to interpret what I was saying without issue. The device also "looks" wide, but fit comfortably into my usb hub without interfering with my other plugs. Some caveats: 1) this device has a 3.5 jack for headphones; if you use it only as a microphone, be sure to disable this device as a speaker in device manager. 2) be sure to use a powered USB hub. I received the error "USB controller resource exceeded" after I plugged in the mic, even with my powered USB hub. I have an xbox wireless receiver, a keyboard dongle, and a bluetooth dongle plugged in there already. After a bit of research, I realized I was plugged into a USB-3 port on the PC; indicated by a blue-colored USB port. I moved the USB hub over to a USB-2 port on the PC, indicated by a non-blue-colored USB port, and everything seemed to work ok eg. keyboard, xbox controller, mic. Admittedly, I never really stress all peripherals at once. Next step for me is to try some cortana scripts. Happy New Year!

I bought this microphone because the original on my Dell XPS stopped working. I use it to skype every day. At first, there was some background noise that affected the call on the other end, but after using it for a while this issue stopped. No other complaints -- I'm glad I purchased it.

This mic is just too big to fit in the usb port of many modern laptops, it has to bend in the port as it presses against the table on my not very thin and lite laptop. The sound quality isn't much better than my onboard mic. I look at it as a waste of money.

The sound quality is awful. There is so much electronic noise that it sounds like a 1920's cheap recording. Don't ever buy this microphone...the worst. I threw mine away.

The quality is acceptable and the device is very handy. Its recording quality isn't a whole lot clearer than the built-in microphone on my mid-2012 MacBook Air, but there is enough of a difference when typing while recording to make it worth it. Less clicky noise! The microphone also works great on Ubuntu Linux. However, I'm having all kinds of problems getting it to sound clear in Ventrilo on Windows. I'm still troubleshooting it, and finding the vendor's site to be not as informational as I'd like it to be in my time of need.

I have used this microphone in web conferencing applications and it provides very clear audio with little to no feedback. Feels sturdy in your hand and is easily portable. Great laptop mic and very impressive for small home recording jobs. Doesnt pick up everything in the room either if you focus the mic towards you. Would buy again.

I bought this mic after several others usb mics displayed ultra low audio when plugged into my computer. This one is loud and clear. In fact I had to go into my mic settings and turn it down! I have it plugged into a usb port about 2ft from my mouth and it picks up clearly and without a lot of background noise. The mic can be turned any direction and seems to be solidly built. The only bad thing I can say about it is that I wish it had come with a foam wind screen.

Records very well across the room. If I use it with my Desktop PC, I use a USB extension cable to keep it away from the hard drive and fan motors which produce unwanted noise in the circuitry of the microphone. Works perfectly in my SSD netbook that has no motors.

Un peu encombrant pour l'usage que je souhaitais en faire. Cependant, le son transmis est clair, même à distance (raisonnablement). Attention cependant, un éclairage sur la base du micro est présent et ne se voit pas sur les photos.

good

Perfect very good quality

Handy little device that doesn't take up much space and seems to pick up sound very well.

Loud , too much sensitive , great for chating and all I dont use it , tried to record some songs , didn't work.