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The Canny Beyerdynamic Fox USB Microphone - DEMO & REVIEW
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May 29, 2025
There are a lot of different microphone choices for a home recording studio, whether you want to live stream on Twitch, record your guitar and singing or just sound great on Skype calls. Few companies have more pro-level microphone experience than Beyerdynamic, however, and it shows with its new Fox USB Microphone. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ demonstrates the Fox microphone and reviews it in this video, finding it a solid addition to any recording setup. Learn more: https://amzn.to/2Qh412e
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is this your next USB desktop microphone
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let's check it out
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[Music]
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Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at this
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this is the beyerdynamic Fox USB
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condenser microphone it's pretty cool
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actually so let's pop off the windshield
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comes with it and here's the microphone
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and it's actually on its little desk
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base so you screw it in and then you
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have all these different adjustments on
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terms of angle and you can turn it and
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the goal is to have it positioned so
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that it's approximately a 90 degree
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angle from the front of the microphone
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to your voice easy enough now comes with
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lots of controls on it but the controls
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are a little curious so on the front
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there is power and then that actually
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acts as a mute button which is very
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handy and then below it you have a mix
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between computer source and the
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microphone and then below that you have
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headphone volume and then you plug in
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headphones so you actually get the
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volume now when I first looked at this
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I'm like where's the second input source
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and the answer is when you plug it into
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your computer or your phone it will work
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with phones the they say just Android I
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haven't tried it out with an iPhone but
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that would be something worth exploring
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but when you plug it in you can play
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music basically into it using it as an
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output device you don't hear anything
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unless you plug it headphones and so
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then you plug in headphones and you can
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hear you can adjust the mix between the
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headphones and mean the original music
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source and your microphone why is this
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great sing-along karaoke later if you're
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doing multitrack recording you can
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actually have all the tracks playing
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through the microphone while you're
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recording the next track that you're
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getting out of the microphone and since
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you have the headphones jack and since
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it's a zero latency headphone then it
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really works really well so you'd plug
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in the headphones and now you're ready
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to go and if you're doing multitrack or
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anything like that and there's some
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fantastic stuff out there people have
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done even at home but you can do that
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really nicely with the
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now on the back is the odd thing on the
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back is the gain control but it's not a
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dial with all these dials and all these
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different controls you would think it
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was but it's actually just a high-low
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gain switch so you get to choose between
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the two
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what beyerdynamic recommends and what
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I've found works really well is leave it
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in high mode unless you're getting
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really really loud source like if you're
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playing trumpet right into this that's
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probably gonna max it out so then you
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can put low gain but that's all you got
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low and high switch why they don't have
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some sort of dial why it's not in the
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front with everything else it's a
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mystery but be that as it may those are
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all the controls now how do you connect
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it with your you know with your
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recording source or your input source if
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you're using music - and that's through
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this this really cool orange USB cable
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the microphone itself works with USB C
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so you plug that in and now you're ready
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to go with that end and then the other
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end is just a regular old USB 3.0 so
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it's the rectangle and that will fit in
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just about any computer you want to put
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on what people would generally call a
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pop shield but you can also call the
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wind shield whatever so that when I do
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that kind of thing it doesn't become
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this loud explosion on the microphone
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people that do recording know exactly
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what I'm talking about it's a tricky
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piece now to actually use the microphone
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then I'm gonna actually hook it up to my
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Macintosh and then we're just gonna use
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audacity because it's probably not the
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optimal piece of software but it is free
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and that makes it a real win so let's
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get this all running and assuming my
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computer wakes up there we go mmm almost
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there we go so now the microphone is hot
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and I'm gonna put on the headphones so I
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can hear what's happening and so now I
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actually I sound better than what I
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don't have my headphones on so it has a
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really nice tone to it and what I want
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to do is I want to actually record so
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first thing we have to do is we have to
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make sure that the input is from the
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microphone
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and once we have that then we can go
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into audacity and audacity let's see so
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it already has this as its input and let
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me just make a couple of quick tweaks
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and then we'll come right back okay so
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we're ready to go we have audacity setup
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we have the microphone setup we've said
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as the input on the computer and I'm
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getting a nice feedback loop it's nice
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echo and it sounds really cool actually
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so what we're gonna do is make sure here
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it is on the Fox and then we have the
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input volume all the way up that's good
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and now I'm just going to press record
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and let's see we'll point this right at
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my mouth just to make sure we get the
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Mac optimal positioning and this is a
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sample of the audio from the biodynamic
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Fox microphone what do you think
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now gonna stop and so you've heard all
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that through the microphone that I use
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for my video let's go ahead and listen
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to that audio directly off of this this
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is a sample of the audio from the
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biodynamic Fox microphone what do you
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think so that's what that sounds like
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and it's pretty cool so let me go ahead
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and turn off the recording and I'll come
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back and tell you a little bit more
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about the microphone so there you have
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it now let me get them headphones off
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and these by the way are the
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beyerdynamic t51p modest little
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headphones they sound dynamite totally
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separate let's get back to the Fox
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microphone now we've tried it you've
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heard a sample let me tell you some of
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the specs it's a 24-bit microphone at 96
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kilohertz 20 to 20,000 Hertz range 98
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decibels dynamic range it has a big
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diaphragm condenser with a cardioid
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pattern so you really want to face front
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it's not gonna sound good from back
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there and the headphone output like I
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said is zero latency it's rated from 16
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to 80 ohms these are approximately 60
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ohm headphones it's what they say if you
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use way higher ohm headphones like 250
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studio monitors or something then you're
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going to just have some sort of funky
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issues with how much volume you have to
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get but you can deal with it we talked
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about the control so mute button gain
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switch for loud sources the wind or pop
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shield the USB cable and I gotta say the
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coolest looking USB cable I think I've
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ever seen it's really nice now on the
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packaging they have this whole thing in
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their ad campaign where they shape the
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orange cord to look like a fox I am NOT
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gonna be able to demonstrate that in
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this video cuz I don't think I could do
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it but the whole thing really it's very
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nice and this is a really nice choice
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for you if you're a musician or if you
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are doing podcasts or anything like that
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it really just is easy simple to work
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with very portable as you can see once
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you pop the wire off this is pretty easy
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to carry around in your bag or a
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briefcase or suitcase or something
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and
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and boom you're ready to roll super easy
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and I find that the sound quality is
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very nice i hope that you heard that in
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the sample i used because that's still
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you know we're getting a lot of
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translations of the sound by the time
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you're hearing it so when i'm monitoring
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the original it really does sound very
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nice there's a richness and warmth to it
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that you really look for in a microphone
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so basically the only other thing to
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talk about is the price and you might be
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surprisingly happy about the price
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because for something at this level and
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with this quality of audio it's really
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pretty much in the budget range which is
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great
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but before we get to the price do me a
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favor and click on subscribe and if you
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are doing podcasts or you are doing
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audio or doing voiceover work or
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something leave a comment telling me
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what microphone you're nuoc using now
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because it'd be interesting to compare
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them anyway so biodynamic fox USB
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condenser microphone it's a hundred and
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seventy nine dollars at biodynamic but
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with the tiniest bit of research online
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you can find it at a hundred and forty
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six eighty four at amazon.com and that
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is a pretty darn good deal for the
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microphone and stand and pop or
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windshield whatever you want to call it
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and obviously the USB cable you need to
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be able to hook it up to your computer
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or with the right adapters hook it up to
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your Android phone so I say this is one
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definitely worth checking out
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I'm already a big fan of biodynamic so
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that's not a huge surprise but I think
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they did a really nice job with this the
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only complaint I have as I already said
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is I don't really understand why the
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gain is a high low switch instead of it
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being actually something where you can
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dial in the game that you want so with
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that one caveat I say this is worth
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checking out and I'm gonna get back to
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some recording so that means I'll catch
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you in my next video
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[Music]
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