Review on AKG Pro Audio Lyra Ultra-HD USB-C Condenser Microphone: Ideal for Recording and Streaming with Four Capsule and Multi-Capture Mode by Jeb Moorehead

UPDATED 05/01/2020 Well you can see my pros and cons of this mic. Yesterday I ordered Blue Yeti. This should tell you where I stand on this. Additional notes and now comparisons. I also have an AKG2020+USB which sounds great but I was dying to adjust the gain and the AKG doesn't have it nor does it have a good way of sitting on a table which I found without a tripod. takes up too much space. Due to the design of the tripod adapter, the weight is inherently unbalanced. But it's a very good machine. I was just too disappointed with this lyra. UPDATED 05/31/2020Great sound but bugs add up for me. The design is excellent, by which I mean physical presence, weight, looks. This is a cool looking microphone to have on your desk. The mute button remains unusable because you have to press it correctly and repeatedly. Not usable if I'm actually recording or hosting a webinar. Biggest mistake, if I adjust the volume in monitor mode during use, I get a little more noise when listening. I do not know why. This makes it difficult to use this feature if you really want to. I'm using it with a Mac Mini on the latest IOS as of this date. Help Desk knows that you must select either the computer's audio controls or the microphones in the session. But now I've found that the front panel audio controls are just as useless as the mute button. Still like the win although it's also a miss as there are no markers to see where it's installed (you'll have to look at the software which makes sense for a final check but it would be nice if you would know what you need like, say ", application specific label if you could know what it is. I ended up labeling it with sharpee. Doesn't help the aesthetics but it's on the other side. still LOVE the acoustic qualities. But "tuning everything live" just isn't good. In focused stereo mode, the cancellation of noise from other directions seems exceptional. I do a lot of internet speaking and occasionally stream videos as part of it, and the Mac Mini's fan spins up and running. It's not super loud (fan) but a less focused condenser mic would pick up that sound directly. It doesn't happen when it's pointed at me (not the mini) and in ei a focused stereo setting. It is very strong trait. Download the latest firmware. Firmware update is NOT available and support has confirmed it. And it should be. I want to love this mic but now I'm looking for something different. Therefore, I am correcting this review after a few months. If they released a firmware update that fixed these things I would get 5 stars from me even with the useless mute button. It could have been the best mic available for streaming, gaming, and podcasting for less than $200, but those failures got me thinking about Blue Yeti tonight. I doubt it can sound that good but I believe all the features could work better. UPDATED 03/27/2020: This is a great theme with amazing features all easily accessible. The sound is fantastic. I mean this is an exceptional case and the choice of capture scheme is better than anything I've seen. The weight and weight is very good in this day and age of plastic box mics. This is significant. And it's pretty retro. That's cool. One of the things that makes it really great is a real, working, smooth gain control right on the mic. This works very well. I have several concerns. I thought one of them was more serious than he could be. The other is just a design flaw, but a relatively minor issue. 1. The front panel volume control interface type with the volume control of the device to which you connect it. Now I know the key to this, and it seems to work: use only one volume control mode through the headphone jack on the microphone. Don't start with the knob on the microphone and then sometimes use the system volume as well. Or don't start by adjusting the system volume and then dragging the knob. Choose a track. Choose one or the other during a session because it does strange things by switching between one or the other. Your technical support has confirmed this to me. This has been tested on my Mac and for me the easiest way is to do this in this order: - connect the microphone - first go to settings/sound and select the AKG microphone for input (it has already selected itself I think ) and then go to the output and select AKG to exit. It will NOT switch there automatically if you only plug in a mic. If you now use external monitoring, e.g. B. via headphones or earphones, use only the knob on the front of the microphone to adjust the volume. Second, set the input level as desired. Many programs such as Some things like zoom control this automatically, but you may want to set it where you want it first in your device's sound settings (Mac or PC). So get in there and fiddle with the boost button on the back until it's where you want it in that area. I'll try this some more later on the iPad Pro and see if it works well enough for me. iPad pros have some weird issues with this sort of thing. I KNOW it works, but control issues are bigger.2. The mute button is just a bug. It's functionally useless. You have to press properly for it to work and it "knocks" a bit and at least on mine it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. So it's just useless for quick muting and unmuting. It makes noise every time you press it and it also doesn't work reliably and you have to press again. It's possible mine is faulty, but I think it's a poorly designed knob/switch. However, it works if you want to make sure the microphone is muted. Otherwise, if you're using it for recording or attending a webinar, for example, consider muting the sound in the software rather than the hardware. The sound is the most important thing and for that it is amazing. And the volume control is better than I thought. It doesn't work as well as the volume control on my Shure MV5, but it's fine if you do as I'm told and set it up the way I suggested above. Access and activation are easier than Shure. A little hint: The brochure that came with it says that you have to do a firmware update first. This will give you a website to navigate to. There is no firmware update. I asked technical support. Firmware update not found. I've raised my rating to 4. It might be 5 more, but not because of the mute button. It will be the sound, the reliability of the design (the weight is very comfortable) and the ability to choose these four settings for sound reproduction. Very good.