Gadgetory

since the first time I ever made a video about a microphone incidentally it was actually the predecessor to this one the SL 300 we've received a lot of requests to cover this category better in it first this was confusing to me why when I was a kid building a hot rod PC the microphone was the last thing on anyone's mind but of course that was before services like twitch TV existed and for that matter before YouTube existed and suddenly you know everyone and their dog all of a sudden figures they need a broadcast grade microphone to ramble into while playing video games but of course that shift has occurred now and my recent appearance on pimped my setup which you can check out here by the way really drove home for me how many of these just perfectly normal people have high-end microphones as part of their rigs and why these reviews are so popular so without further ado here's our video of the SL 600 condenser microphone from editors keys Corsairs h ati GT in h 100 GTX all-in-one liquid coolers improve both the appearance and cooling of your PC click my face to learn more right out of the box the SL 600 feels more professional-grade than consumer grade and actually mean that in kind of a negative sense it includes a hard case for travel you know because everyone needs one of those and a reasonably competent if not exceptional shock mount okay that one's actually pretty handy and guys like blue and razer charge extra for that on similarly priced consumer slash prosumer oriented mics like the yeti pro and siren and they had the sense to include a nice long USB cable but it doesn't include any kind of stand for the darn thing this is what professional gear is always like you know here's the hard stuff to find but we'll just assume you already have like a thing to actually put it on your freaking desk or something more elaborate like a boom arm that clamps to it to hold the thing up and and I didn't I mean it's not a huge deal in editors keys does have a reasonably priced stand accessories if you don't have your own already but the bad news is that could put the SL 600 beyond the you know oh it's only a little bit more than the siren threshold where folks are likely to upsell themselves a few bucks for something that is significantly better if they don't already own one but is it significantly better patience we'll get to that first the physical tour the SL 600 has a striking and to me very appealing but I'm kind of partial to this color scheme appearance with a black metal body and orange mesh over the single large 34 millimetre diaphragm yes folks this is not a jack-of-all-trades microphone so if you were expecting to get XLR output and veritable smorgasbord of pickup patterns that are pretty unlikely to be used outside of very specific situations you'll be sorely disappointed the SL 600 is designed to be used one way and one way only speak into the microphone below the business end is a low-cut switch to get rid of the boo meanness that can sometimes occur when someone other than me sits too close at minus 10 decibel pre attenuation switch for loud sources a gain knob and what's this the big upgrade that got my attention on this model compared to the SL 300 which I use just about every other day a headphone nob to go along with the zero latency audio monitoring port just under the dial very nice just like the other microphones that I'm comparing against it can output only your computer systems sound from that port or it can mix in the microphones input with zero delay making it perfect for podcasting or does it now we'll get into the actual audio quality I'll be putting it up against the two similarly priced products that I have in my testing stable right now in my usual scenarios let's start with some test audio from the SL 600 in my ideal scenario where it's positioned directly in front of me between my keyboard and face with a dual layer pop filter in this position the SL 600 performs very well ambient noise pickup is among the lowest I've encountered so in spite of the four other computers in the room and the nearby server room and even with the keyboard rocking out in the background behind it which I'll start mashing away on now voice quality is very very good I mean if you're a game streamer this can be the difference between an acceptable microphone and one that's totally useless which was my biggest complaint about the Razer siren from my Yeti blackout and pro review the sound of my voice through the siren was a strong point for it but it's high noise floor and inability to shut out background noise like typing like this hurts it in a big way when it's commanding a big league price similar to the other microphones we're looking at today the next of which is the blue yeti pro which holds up really well against the competition it's noise floor is similar and it's ambient noise pick up both the hum of the computer systems and typing away behind the mic is noticeably better than the SLE 600 but both Brandon and I in side-by-side listening tests pegged the SLE 600 as the more natural sounding of the two and therefore probably my pick for vocal recording with the yeti pro having a more radio like sound quality at this distance something that many broadcasters will prefer which got me thinking how would the SL 600 perform in a more up close and personal recording environment the answer is you're listening to it you get a much warmer sound with more bass but without it becoming overwhelming that same experiment on the yeti pro didn't give me nearly as dramatic a difference in the recording though so for skilled broadcasters who want to leverage the different ways that they'll sound as they move closer or further from the microphone the SL 600 is a clear winner for me which leads us to our next test scenario starting with the SL 600 putting the mic off to the side next to the monitor where it's forced to operate from a distance of about half a meter from the sound source this is definitely not the SL 600 wheelhouse it sounds noticeably more distant than the blue yeti pro which I'll switch to now for easy side-by-side comparison although as usual I have standardized test recordings which you can find in my SoundCloud linked below the video but I'd still take it over the razor siren which I'm switching to now due to the sirens noise floor and background noise pickup which continue to be the bane of its existence is this thing on all right so let's talk final thoughts then once you get to a certain point it looks like four USB desktop microphones that's about $200 it becomes more about trade-offs than one product being clearly significantly better than another the SL 600 would be my choice for pure vocals or broadcasting thanks to its voice recording prowess and the lifetime warranty is a definite plus but the Yeti pros XLR output Hardware mute button it's a big one and ambient noise reduction make it a clear choice for game streamers at the same price once you factor in that you're going to need a stand for this bad boy speaking of streaming and that game streamers xsplit broadcaster powers countless live streams and recordings around the world including the land show that you see here on Linus tech tips every Friday their new v2 version of the software has powerful new tools it's built to meet the needs of today's content creators and all these bullet points that I'm supposed to say but the basic point of all of this is that xsplit is affordable and just plain works it's stable their game detection is outstanding so it can actually pick up on games Luke's had it running with games that aren't even released yet and it's just like Boop yeah we know about this we'll let you go ahead and cast that which helps the games not be as demanding on your system when you're streaming them as well as just generally being easier to use you can set up a variety of scenes you got fade effects as you switch between them and it's got all kinds of stuff that really just generally makes the life of me personally and I'm assuming anyone else who tries it a little bit easier the best part is that if you're willing to give up on a couple of the more premium features like lots of extra scenes it is completely free there's also some stuff I should mention about xsplit gamecaster so that's for gamers to easily stream and record their great gaming moments at the click of a button it's got an easy-to-use overlay so you can go ahead and bring that up and start you know streaming or recording your gameplay without actually all tabbing completely out of the game and I think those are pretty redundant I've got another point that says it's great for creating live streams and recordings yeah yeah it would be I mean anything split media makes it pretty much is for that so visit xsplit comm slash Linus to start streaming and recording in HD today guys thanks for watching like this video if you like to dislike it if you thought it sucked leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than either of those if you actually want to leave a comment we've got a link in the video description to where you can do that on the Linus tech tips forum you can log in to facebook steam I believe Twitter login is allowed so you don't even have to go through a whole content got a profile creation process also linked in the video description you can support us with a monthly contribution by a cool t-shirt like this one or just change your amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate coats we get a small kickback whenever you buy microphones or whatever else it is you shop for on Amazon that kind of stuff helps us out a lot thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe