Best gaming microphone 2024 | PCGamesN

The best gaming microphone is the Blue Yeti X.

Anyone who’s remotely familiar with gaming microphones won’t be surprised to see Blue topping the list, given that the original Blue Yeti made the desktop microphone a staple streaming item. The Blue Yeti X only features improvements, too, combining the greatest elements of its predecessor with its smaller Nano model, resulting in the best gaming microphone on the market.

The best budget USB gaming microphone is the Razer Seiren Mini.

There are plenty of unbranded value options to choose from, but the Razer Seiren Mini offers the best bang for your buck. You’ve heard of the phrase ‘the best things come in small packages’, right?

The Razer Seiren Mini might be one of the most compact microphones we’ve ever seen, but it packs a lot of technology to ensure its sound quality rivals the Blue Snowball, and perhaps even the Blue Yeti. At $49.99 / £50, its price-to-performance ratio makes it the best budget gaming microphone around.

The best budget XLR gaming microphone is the Audio-Technica AT2020.

Audio-Technica is a professional audio brand that often sits up there with the likes of Rode, Shure, Sennheiser, and Beyerdynamic, but it’s also had the best entry-level XLR microphone for quite some time. Despite the 2004 release of the original, the Audio-Technica AT2020 is still the best budget XLR gaming microphone you can get your hands on.

The crystal clear audio only requires 48V of phantom power or more, meaning a relatively inexpensive Focusrite Scarlett Solo preamp will do the trick if you don’t want to spend the extra on the best XLR audio interface. It also doesn’t carry the same ‘gamer’ aesthetic as most of the entries on this list.

The best gaming microphone for streaming is the Elgato Wave:3.

You can stream without a webcam, but broadcasting without a microphone removes the interactive element with your viewers, making audio quality all the more important. The Elgato Wave:3 comes with a whole host of features to make sure both you and your audience gets the best experience possible.

It has an understated design that’s smaller than most smartphones, meaning it won’t steal the show or obscure your webcam. It’s also highly functional, using a single dial to adjust the input gain, headphone monitoring volume, and even the microphone and PC mix to strike the right balance between the two. The red mute LED around the dial is also invaluable, preventing you from talking into the void when you forget you’re muted.

Software is Elgato’s strong suit, providing you with a nine-channel digital mixer to properly tune your audio. It doesn’t have a big learning curve and is well worth the price tag with its more granular approach to your stream’s sound – provided you only need the one microphone, as you can’t run multiple Wave mics simultaneously.

The best microphone for entry-level streamers is the Rode NT-USB Mini.

It’s true that streamers with better audio grow faster than those without, but microphones don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Similar to the Wave:3, Rode’s NT-USB Mini offers quality sound capture and the ability to split your desktop and stream audio within the Rode Connect software, all for under $100.

There are some sacrifices for the slimmer MSRP, as you’ll be limited to two playback channels and you’ll need to account for background noise if you want the cleanest mix. But unlike its more expensive rival, you can use up to four NT-USB Minis at once for a multi-microphone setup.

The best part is just how well it performs with its compact design, as Rode shrinks down its renowned full-sized Rode NT-USB into a smaller frame. You won’t find this one getting in the way of your webcam.

The best microphone with RGB lighting is the HyperX QuadCast S.

Early on in your streaming career, you have a decision to make: do you want to be the centre of attention or are you happy for your flashy equipment to sit in the spotlight? If your answer is the latter, then the HyperX QuadCast S might be more your bag, being one of the only gaming microphones to feature full RGB lighting.

Its closest rival is the Razer Seiren Emote, which offers eye-catching animations, but they are quite limited. The lighting within the HyperX QuadCast S takes up the entire head of the microphone, however, allowing you to add your own flare of personalisation through colour.

The quality of the HyperX QuadCast S is the same as the original red LED model, which is to say not as clear as the Blue Yeti X but still crisp. It also features the same built-in shockmount to dampen the sound when you accidentally (or purposefully, we’re not judging) bang against your desk, which feeds into its value given that shockmounts aren’t cheap. $159.99 / £159.99 is the asking price for the QuadCast S, but if you are willing to give up the RGB lighting, the original will set you back $139.99 / £119.99.

The best wireless gaming microphone is the Antlion Audio Modmic Wireless.

The best high-end gaming microphone is the Shure SM7B

If you’re wondering what the go-to microphone is for most of your favourite content creators, radio stations, and musicians, it’s the Shure SM7B with an XLR interface. As the only dynamic microphone on this list, it’s much less sensitive than the condenser microphones, meaning that noises like the ceaseless clacking of a mechanical keyboard are unlikely to be picked up.

There’s a reason the Shure SM7B is held in such high regard, with a built-in windshield, a mounting bracket that doubles up as a shock mount, and a staggeringly high 96kHz sample rate – although very few people will want to use the full range anyway – it’s the clearest microphone we’ve used.

That shouldn’t be surprising given just how much it costs. Its hefty $399 / £356 price tag means this gaming microphone certainly isn’t for everyone, and the cost is pushed up even further when taking into account that the Shure SM7B needs at least 60db of gain from an external source. This leaves cheaper audio interfaces out of the question unless paired with a $149 / £149 Cloudlifter, but pairing it with the best XLR audio interface does make for an unbeatable microphone setup without spending thousands.

The best XLR audio interfaces are the GoXLR and GoXLR Mini

Using an XLR microphone requires a good audio interface for phantom power, and none offer more value for money than TC-Helicon’s GoXLR series. The full sized model is a hybrid preamp, mixer, sampler, and sound board all for $399 / £330 MSRP, while the GoXLR Mini strips away the latter two features for a slimmer $248 / £142 price tag.

Both devices have a low-noise Midas preamp inside that pushes up to 72db of gain, giving them the ability to power even the most demanding of microphones, like the Shure SM7B. Admittedly, they’re only good for a single microphone setup with one XLR input, and are a little too reliant on software to the point where they won’t work without it running in the background, but it’s intuitive enough to help newcomers set things up easily and customise RGB lighting, equalisers, compressors, and de-essers to get rid of awkward hisses.