- I really wanted to love
using the Blue Compass with the Shure SM7B.
It's a gorgeous stand.
It has a clever cable management system.
There's a lot of things to be liked about the design,
but unfortunately, there are four big issues with this stand
that make it so I cannot recommend it for you
or for any of my friends who are looking for a boom arm
for their Shure SM7B,
and quite frankly, for any other microphone as well.
Before we get into that,
if you are looking for pricing and specs,
price is a huge consideration
if you are looking at equipment like this.
We have current links to current pricing,
where you can buy it, where it's in stock,
where it's not in stock, down in the description below.
So please do check out those links
to make sure that you are finding the best availability
and the best current price possible
if you are looking at finding anything
in this video for your home studio.
Now first of all, let's start with the things that I like.
Its all matte black design
make it incredibly studio-friendly.
There's a lot of other manufacturers out there
that attempted to put chrome elements on it,
and it just looks horrible
when you have things like lights and camera,
the chrome can be highly reflective.
This is really, really nice.
It doesn't have any of the big knobs
that a lot of other boom arms have.
These recessed plastic knobs look nice.
They can tighten things up reasonably well,
but ultimately, they are a little problematic
aside from their really good looks.
And the really big pro column for this,
they have this really clever cable management design here
where you flip open these thumb tabs
and you can lay whatever cable that you want.
So some stands like this will have a built-in XLR cable,
and some stands have no cable management at all.
So here you get to choose your own XLR cable,
or you can run a USB cable if you are using a USB mic.
You can design it however you want.
Use colored cable, black cable, green cable,
whatever you wanna do, you can do that with this cable tray
that's integrated into the Blue Compass.
In terms of overall, like sizing and everything,
it is very appropriate for moving it around on a desk
or boardroom table for a podcast, broadcast, live stream.
You can usually make this arm reach
where you're trying to make it reach,
so the sizing is absolutely perfect as well.
Now when we get into actually using this stand
with the Shure SM7B
is where we're gonna run into four big issues.
I'm gonna start with the desk clamp.
So you get one desk clamp,
and it's just a standard clamp-style desk clamp.
You don't get anything like this with it
that would allow you to drill a hole
and have the stand recessed into your desk.
I'm using a third-party clamp with it right here
just because I do like a lot of things about that clamp,
the flexibility to use other stands, et cetera.
But you do just get this one clamp with it.
On the bottom of this clamp here,
you can see that there is a small rubber pad.
It only sticks up about a millimeter.
And when you compress it, it will mark your desk
if you're using a soft wood
or if you have a high-gloss boardroom table
or something like that.
For me, I'm recording corporate podcasts all the time,
so I'm going into temporary environments
where I'm bringing a Pelican case full of gear
and I set it all up.
I don't always know what I'm walking into,
but I'm always uncomfortable using this clamp for this stand
in a bunch of different environments.
To sum it up, and the going trend in this video,
is that this looks amazing.
Everything about the stand looks amazing.
When it's integrated with it,
it looks seamless, it's gorgeous.
It's a really nice-looking design.
It's just not super practical.
You can only mount it one way.
You can't mount it sideways.
There's no tension screw or anything like that
to really lock it in if you want.
And I'm always terrified that this thing
is gonna mark the table that I'm using it with.
So that's one first big thing
that I don't like about the stand.
The next one is extremely common with the Shure SM7B.
A lot of different stands have this issue.
And that is that this cable
will get caught on the first knuckle here.
So if you can commit to keeping that cable
on one side or the other, it's okay.
But ultimately, these things start to add up
where you're thinking about shortfalls of the design.
You can add a three-inch extension tube to it.
We'll do that at the end of the video.
This brings its own problems to this stand,
and we'll cover those issues,
but it does resolve this cable hang up issue.
I'll put that on at the very end
so you can see how that works.
So that's one big issue.
Next, it has the issue
that a lot of other tube-style stands have,
and that's shake.
Every time you move it, it jiggles for a second or two.
And that's just because of how these things are sprung.
Compared to a scissor-style stand, these connections here
just don't have the leverage that they need,
so they have to really crank the spring
to get them to work properly,
and you end up with this shaking
that will drive you nuts after a while.
The fourth big one,
and this one is completely unique to the Blue Compass,
and it is the biggest shortfall of the Blue Compass design,
is that it does not hold the microphone for you
where you leave it.
This middle connection here seems to be the biggest culprit.
If you have it smaller than 90 degrees, it will rise on you.
If you have it higher than 90 degrees,
it will come down on you.
So I'm gonna show you.
Everything is tight.
This one is extremely tight.
I've played with the tension screw that's inside it.
You can take it apart with a screwdriver.
So if you put it up, it will sink.
If you put it down low, it will raise.
And this will drive you nuts
because when you're trying to deliver your message
or continue your train of thought on a live stream,
video conference, anything,
it's common to fidget with the mics then,
but then you see like that,
it doesn't sit where you leave it, it drops.
It drops, and then it shakes.
So you find that you're doing all of this mental math
while you're trying to deliver your message,
thinking, "I just wanna raise this a little bit.
So I need to raise it that much,
so when it drops, it will be here."
And for me, that's super, super annoying.
Let's put the Shure extension tube on it,
and then we would go over my final thoughts with that on it
so you can see the other issue with this as well.
So this is what it looks like
with the three-inch Shure extension tube added.
You can see here that it does solve the cable issue.
You can now freely move the microphone
and you're not worried about it getting hung up there.
That will protect your cables,
help them last longer, and ultimately,
give you a less distraction-filled experience
with the Blue Compass here.
It does also help the float issue.
Now that we have more weight here,
it doesn't float up as much.
You do have to really tighten this one now
because now, this point has so much leverage on it.
But this middle joint here
that usually has a lot of issue, it's less so.
But now that we have all this leverage,
it sags a lot more.
So here, we're gonna add this up.
One, we had a cable management issue.
We needed a third-party piece of equipment for it.
That's not a huge deal.
That's pretty common with the SM7B on any stand.
Next, I'm not loving this thing.
It looks really, really good, but ultimately,
I'm worried that it's gonna scratch and not work properly,
so I don't love using this either.
It does shake quite a bit, which can be distracting.
And ultimately, the big thing here
is that it doesn't hold the microphone where I leave it.
If I go high, it drops.
If I go down low, it comes up.
And if it doesn't work for those four things,
then what are you buying this stand for?
I'm always aware of why I spend money on things.
I buy a mic stand to hold the mic where I leave it.
This mic stand
does not leave the microphone where I leave it.
Everything is tightened.
I've read all the manuals.
It does not leave the microphone where you put it,
so why would you buy this stand?
That's ultimately what it comes down to.
A mic stand has one job.
That job is to hold the microphone where you leave it,
and this stand doesn't do it,
so I can't recommend that you buy this stand.
I actually go out of my way now
to tell people not to buy this stand.
So that is the biggest consideration for me.
I hammer this point home.
I always talk about this when it comes down to this stand.
You can see right there.
I hate doing this mental math,
where, okay, if I want the microphone here,
it doesn't hold it where you need it to be,
and that's a big problem for me.
So if you have any other questions about the stand,
if you have any comments about something I'm missing
other than tightening these three all the way down
and playing with the tension screw underneath,
maybe there's something I'm missing,
but I don't think there is.
If you have another comment
of your experience with this stand,
please leave a comment down in the comments section below.
Again, if you are looking for pricing
just so you can compare it to other stands
in the same price range,
please do check out the links down in the description below.
And if you wanna see more videos like this in the future,
please like and subscribe.
Thank you for watching.
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