Today, we're going to be taking a look
at another inexpensive microphone from FiFine,
but this time, it's a USB condenser microphone.
Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music]
♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everyone? I'm Gerald Undone
and today, we've got another microphone from FiFine.
This one is their K670 USB condenser microphone.
I think this one's going after the Blue Yeti microphones
USB plug and play and it's probably targeted after
podcasts, streamers, that kind of thing.
Right into the computer, just using them that way.
Quick disclaimer as always. This is not a sponsored video,
although I was sent this microphone for free to review,
I was not paid to make this video, so the opinions
and thoughts I'm about to give are my own.
So, let's do a quick unboxing, then we'll get into
a little bit of the features and see how it sounds.
[funky electronic instrumental]
♪
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about the microphone.
Fit and finish-wise, it's quite nice.
Obviously, we need to note that these are
inexpensive microphones, the FiFine ones.
This one is like $50 USD and $60 CAD, so it's 2-3x cheaper
than the, we'll call it the similar Blue microphone
that it might be going after, depending on the sale
going on the Blue microphone at the time.
The Yeti is anywhere from $130-190 CAD
depending on its price when you're looking at it.
Now, I'm not saying that this is as good as the Blue Yeti.
I don't have one side-by-side to compare it to,
but I do think that the fit and finish is quite nice.
Small complaints, the thread for the locking screw here
left a little bit to be desired. If you loosen it off too much,
it falls out and it's a little bit hard to get back in.
Normally, some higher quality ones will have a little bit
more leeway there and the actual mount it goes on
is plastic, but the base and the extension bars,
they're all metal and the microphone has a decent weight
to it and the diaphragm size is quite nice as well
and there's a little LED inside that casts a blue light.
That's kind of cool. Volume knob on the front
and there's a headphone port on the back
so when you plug this into your computer,
it'll show up as two devices.
This'll show up as an output device, a speaker
and then the microphone will obviously show up
as an input device. The USB cable is quite nice as well.
It's thick and seems well shielded. Good connections
and it has a nice aesthetic.
Overall, I like the way that this microphone looks.
The shroud on top here is quite nice and tightly woven
and it also appears to be of metal construction.
Now, speaking of the volume knob,
there was a little bit of finesse
that I was required to do
when I was playing with the levels earlier to get it
to sound good. I don't think that the amplification
of this microphone is that great.
I think that there's definitely some gain issues,
so I'm using a Windows PC
and there's two volume controls obviously.
In Windows, you're going to have the slider of 0-100
of the input gain on the microphone,
and then obviously, there's the volume dial itself.
If you set the Windows volume to 100,
almost anywhere you place this volume knob,
it's going to sound bad. It's going to sound overamplified
where everything is distorted. It's not really clipping.
There seems to be like peak prevention
in the microphone because it never seems to exceed
a certain level of -3, -2, but it sounds heavily compressed
in order to achieve that peak reduction.
So, don't set it to 100 in the computer.
Set it to somewhere between high 80s to low 90s.
It seemed to be okay and then you can have
a little bit more play with the knob.
If you want to put the knob all the way up,
then obviously you should set the computer
even lower. This is what you do anytime
that you're running multiple devices with volume.
You want to have your best device at the higher volume
and then roll it off from there, but in the case
of a USB device, it's a little bit harder to tell
where your best amplification is going to come from.
So, just try to find a balance of maybe run everything
at 70% or something like that until you get
the volume that you want, but no 100s.
100s are no good. So, I found for me that 89 in Windows
and putting the knob at about 12 o'clock,
which is right in the middle, seemed to produce
a reasonably okay sound and it's much easier
to just sort of boost and normalize it in post
to keep the cleaner sound, 'cause there's nothing
you can do with that distorted compressed sound afterwards.
So, you're better off recording a little bit
lower volume and then boosting up afterwards.
For those of you that are going to stream
or something like that, I would recommend
that you do the same things I just said,
but then use OBS or something like that
to add a little software gain rather than using the knob
and turning it all the way up
because I think that your voice will go that weird,
distorted, clipping sound. Okay, let's give it a little listen.
I'm going to place it right here in front of me on the desk
and I've got the, as you can see, it tilted back a little bit
so the diaphragm is pointing pretty much up,
right around here. So, I'm going to put it in this position
and I'm going to talk at the camera.
We are now recording from the K670 USB microphone
from FiFine and while we're doing a little audio test here,
let's go over some of the specs.
So, the frequency response is listed to be
between 50-15000 Hz
and the diaphragm is a 16mm diaphragm,
which--I guess that'd be considered a large diaphragm,
but it's kind of like a medium, medium plus. What else?
The USB cable is just over 6 feet, 6 1/2 feet,
which is decent length for the cable.
The weight of the device is about 1 lb,
so like I said, it feels substantial.
It comes with a three-piece detachable stand,
which is all metal. What else do they have listed here?
You can adjust the angle of the microphone
in which ever way you want. So, it'll flip completely over
on the stand so you can have it upside-down position
and they give you two, I noticed in the unboxing,
I was trying to figure it out, they give you two mounts,
the thing that screws onto the pole
and then you put the microphone in there.
There's two of those because that's the only sort of,
weaker looking plastic part, so that's probably
the most likely thing to break so they give you
two of those. Now, let's take a minute here
and listen for a bit of silence
and see what the noise level is like.
[slight humming]
Okay, let's pull the clip open in Audition.
We'll inspect the sound signal and then we'll maybe
make a little bit of adjustments to it
with maybe an EQ or a compressor,
some noise reduction. See if we can clean it up
a little bit, but we'll see how it sounds.
♪
Listen for a bit of silence to see
what the noise level is like.
♪
Silence to see what the noise level is like.
♪
Because that's the only sort of, weaker looking
plastic part, so that's probably the most likely thing
to break, so they give you two of those.
Let's just take a minute here and listen
to a bit of silence to see what the noise level is like.
[slight humming]
The USB cable is just over six feet, six and a half feet.
Okay, so we're back now and this is back
to my regular microphone.
So overall, I'm pretty impressed for the price.
I think it sounds pretty decent. I didn't think
it needed a lot of work in order to make it sound great.
I might put a little bit of noise reduction
and obviously use a compressor if I was to record this
myself, but I was pleasantly surprised how it handled.
I've used much more expensive mics that I thought had
a worse noise floor or handled transients
and stuff like that worse than this mic did,
so I think it's pretty good for $50 USD, $60 CAD,
I think that's a pretty decent price point
and entry level for someone who wants to do
a little bit of recording or do some live stuff,
podcast, streaming. I think it's a decent solution
at the price point and like I said,
I was pleasantly surprised with the fit and finish
and the build quality. I like the way that it looks
and sound-wise, I think as long as you manage
your levels, so like I said, in the computer,
you can't put that all the way up to 100,
and you definitely can't put the knob all the way to 100.
You gotta boost it in post. That's the only drawback.
The amplification is not great on this unit.
Other than that, I think it's pretty decent.
That's going to be it for me. I hope you found
this video helpful or at least entertaining.
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Alright... I'm done.
♪