Review on XIAOKOA Microphone Omnidirectional Compatible Podcasting by Troy Simpson

I currently recommend that you try the FIFINE K050 Mini Gooseneck Microphone [B07TD3Q19F] before trying this one. It's the same style and price... and FIFINE has a solid reputation for product/quality. However, I am very satisfied with this product and the purchase. You get a lot for your money here. (Maybe that's why the price has gone up $2 since I bought mine last month.) Build quality is solid. The gooseneck is metal, flexes and holds its position very well. The base appears to be plastic but is weighted to give it stability and avoid confusing it with a metal base. It's plug and play, no drivers required. I don't think it's said anywhere, but USB 2.0. Considering the small amount of signal this device transmits over the cable, USB 2.0 should more than suffice. Just to be clear, the CK model glows blue around the base... the CK-RGB model glows, well, RGB. The model I see here is slightly different from the one I received when I placed my order a month ago. I don't have the XIAOKOA mark under the switch but on the base. There is a small hole above the switch as shown. The seller informed me that this hole is NOT an on/off LED. It's more of a vent, as there's a small sound card at the base. I found the pickup and sound quality to be excellent when the mic is right next to the source. Clear picture with no background noise. Good for 2 feet. It's audible at a distance of 3 feet, but the sound has become more like a speakerphone. I bought a USB extension cable...so I can just grab the mic and put it right next to me when it's in use and then put it behind my desk when I'm done with it. If the microphone doesn't seem to work at all, make sure you've logged into your operating system and selected it as your audio input device. For my version of Windows, this path is Control Panel/Sounds and Audio Devices/Audio/Sound Recorder. This device will then be in the drop-down menu labeled USB Audio Device. For my version of Windows, I followed the path above...then pressed the volume down button. Windows appeared with a volume control. (I ended up moving mine to the maximum.) Then there was a button underneath it called "Advanced". Clicking on this button opened another window with the flag "1 AGC". AGC certainly stands for Automatic Gain Control. Selecting AGC tells the microphone's sound card to increase sensitivity/pickup, but also increases background hiss/noise. For me, the mic worked better without AGC; Your experience may vary. The user guide, which you can download here, will show you how to follow the same steps on both the current Windows version and Mac OS. My version of Windows has a small built-in audio recorder that you can use to test the functionality and audio quality of your default audio input device. It was found in Windows/system32/sndrec32.exe. I recorded with a mic and then played back the recording to hear the results and determine the best settings for the mic. My version of sndrec32.exe generated some error messages while using it (which I ignored) and I had to restart the program after each entry. I mainly use it for phone calls through my computer. It works very well for this purpose as long as I place the mic right next to me where the voice quality is high and there is no background hiss/noise. And with the USB extension cable, it's a breeze to move it next to me when in use. UPDATE: I've edited my review to remove the earlier mention of this mic supporting a persistent volume setting in Windows. In other words, the Windows volume setting was randomly moved up or down, turned off, or even completely disappeared as a device. The problem was NOT with this microphone or its sound card, but with Google Hangouts. It turns out that Hangouts has a built-in automatic volume control that can't be disabled. This topic is covered extensively in various online discussions.