NEAT Microphones Neat Worker Bee II - Cardioid Medium Diaphragm Condenser Microphone with Internal Capsule Shock Mount, for Recording, Podcasting, Streaming, and Gaming, XLR Output - Black

No nonsense mic at a decent price. Top end is pretty OK and overall tilts a little to the dark side. I high pass or shelf -1dB @ 125hz depending on the singer for best vocal results. Better on various instruments than you might think.

One of the best Cardioid XLR microphones I could think of, the only complaint of course being the lack of a pop filter that could come with it, and also the shape of the microphone base itself being a little awkward for certain microphone stands, but those are really just nitpicks.

This is an outstanding condenser microphone. I want to say "for the money" but that suggests it's far from perfect, but for a cheap price it does pretty well. This is not the case with the lowly worker bee. This mic produces great sound no matter what the cost. I recently bought a Rode Signature NT1 mic, and this worker bee is so close to the Rode in audio quality, any differences are not worth talking about. Both mics provide great sound, fairly flat but with a pleasing low end. But the Rode Signature costs $159, and this mic is currently selling for $59. How Neat can make a mic this good and sell it this cheap is beyond me. I do spoken word Bible devos, so I can't speak about how it would be for instruments, but for podcasts, this should be great. BTW, many feel a condenser mic is worthless unless you are in a perfectly treated room. Not true, this mic performs beautifully in a less than ideal room, as long as you keep it about 4-5 inches away from your mouth. And not having a windscreen is no issue at all as long as you keep the mic at a 45 degree angle to your face. I use quite a few mics. Most of them require an EQ to create a sound that pleases me. Some require a severe EQ, and there are some mics I have tried that could never please me no matter how much I EQ'd them. But with this mic (and the Rode NT1 and Signature) I do not need to EQ at all - just some compression and noise removal.

Tengo muchos micros, y este no le pide nada a los más caros, excelente opción para comenzar sin romper el cochinito. No te va a decepcionar!

First, the pros. Sound quality and value. I use mics for spoken word, character work, etc. I purchased this as a back-up for my NT1, as the price was great, and I really liked the KB1 that I used on a project. This mic has quickly become my daily mic and the Rode is now the back-up. This thing sounds way better than it should for the money. Remember that the original KB retailed for 350 bucks before Gibson's bankruptcy, so this version is actually quite a bit lower in price, despite many folks getting the KB1 for 100-130. What I believe Turtle Beach has done is ditch the transformer and the kitschy stuff but kept the best bits for a microphone that in my opinion, sounds even more refined than the original. Self-noise. 6db. 'Nuff said. The cons. 1- This could have been put in a much lighter mic body. Unnessesarily heavy and absolutely requires a premium boom arm. 2- The pop filter. Little pop filters that fit up against the capsule are virtually useless, and the manufacturers know it. (I'm looking at you too, Lewitt) The physics don't work. You will need a decent pop filter, properly placed, as you would with any decent, sensitive LDC. 3- Ground Hum. Ok, I imagine that this has been resolved, but a number of people who bought this early experienced ground buzzing that made the mic unusable. I would not have even purchased this, had I not found a video from a small but brilliant youtube creator who discovered the fix. This had nothing to do with the circuit or capsule, but was simply some overspray of paint that got into the threads where the body pieces screw together. The body of a mic like this is part of the grounding circuit, and those pieces must connect to complete the loop. Some sloppy painting of an early run of these coated the threads. Simply cleaning the paint from the threads fixes the issue. Realizing this, I went ahead and purchased the mic, and very glad I did. For all these annoying cons, this mic sounds very premium and again, the value is excellent. As soon as I wrap up this long-winded review, I'm buying another. I'm going to strip out the guts and install them in a lighter, less bulky mic body. For the money (currently 119) I can't lose.