greetings earthlings today I am back with a review of another what is this oh good another
multi-pattern USB condenser microphone I am so excited to test this out why am i yelling so
today we're looking at this guy the brand new microphone from AKG the AKG Lyra if you are
interested in this microphone it will cost you around one hundred and fifty dollars like always
I'll throw some links down below and for this review I have the microphone connected directly
to my Mac my computer's gain is set at around 50% and the microphones gain is maybe around 15% it's
impossible to know but regardless I will not do any kind of post-processing but I may boost
the audio and post so check the doobly-doo to see what I did Lee did now let's talk about
what comes in the box of course you are going to get the microphone a 2 meter USB C 2 USB a
cable a 5/8 to 3/8 inch microphone stand adapter some documentation and a registration card for
Ableton lite then as far as the build quality of this microphone it feels decent at best it
does have a metal mesh grille which has a bit of give to it the body is made completely out
of plastic the mounting joints are also made out of plastic the dials are also made out of
plastic surprise surprise and they have a whirring amount of wobble wobble bobble cobbled to them or
something and the button does have a nice tactile click to it on the front of the microphone you
will find a headphone volume control as well as a polar pattern indicator like to let you
know if you are on any of the four polar patterns and you will find a microphone mute button on the
rear of the microphone you will find a polar pattern selection dial to switch between all
four of the polar patterns and a microphone gain dial and lastly on the bottom of the microphone
you will find a USB C port to connect this to your computer or your phone a 3.5 millimeter headphone
djaq which does offer latency free monitoring and if you unscrew the microphone from the desktop
stand you will find five eighths inch threading to mount this to a standard microphone stand then as
far as specs this microphone has a front front back tight stereo and wide stereo polar pattern
in other words cardioid omnidirectional stereo and double stereo it has a frequency response of
20 Hertz to 20 kilohertz a max SPL of 129 DB a bit depth of 24-bit sampling rate of 192 kilohertz and
it is compatible with Windows Mac Android and iOS now I am on the front setting assuming this is the
cardioid polar pattern and this is how it sounds I will go ahead and spin around the microphone
to 90 degrees show you how it sounds from the side continue around to 180 degrees from the
rear then I will continue to the second 90 degree angle and then rotate and end at the front of the
mic now I am on the front back setting which you would figure is a figure 8 polar pattern no pun
intended but it is rather an omnidirectional polar pattern and this is how it sounds I will
rotate around to 90 degrees to show you how it sounds here there should be very little change
in coloration and tone as we move around to 180 degrees continue around to the second 90 degree
angle and then rotate and end at the front now I am on the tight stereo setting which I believe is
just a standard stereo microphone setup and here is how the tone sounds I will move around the
microphone to the first 90 degree angle show you how it sounds here continue around the microphone
to 180 degrees pretty dead back here continue around the microphone to the second 90 degree
angle and then rotate and end at the front and lastly we are on the wide stereo setting which
I believe based on the diagrams has a stereo set in the front and a stereo set in the back
and this is how the audio sounds I will rotate around to the 90 degree angle show you what it
sounds like here continue around the my Carphone to 180 degrees here's how it sounds from the rear
continue around to the second 90 degree angle and then rotate and end at the front of the microphone
now I will go ahead and hit the microphone mute button to see what kind of noise that generates
now I have the Lyra on the provided desktop stand it is about a foot and a half away from
my mouth on the front setting or cardioid mode and here is how it sounds I will bang
on a keyboard where it would normally be while I was typing on a computer and here is how the
audio sounds and why you should not really use any of these microphones on the provided desktop
stand and now I am typing on a keyboard with the microphone on the boom arm to show you how
the sound level compares and now I am bumping on the desk to show you what kind of rejection the
provided desktop stand can provide from that kind of noise bumping the table with the microphone on
a desktop boom arm now I am going to go ahead and tap the microphone to see if there are any
kind of resonant frequencies with the body or the components now I am typing on a keyboard
with cherry MX blues to see how much of my voice versus how much of the keyboard a picks up and
for you leet gamers now we are typing on the sad W Keys now I am right on top of the AKG Lyra to show
you the proximity effect on this thing about three inches off of the microphone with a pointed at the
corner of my mouth and here's how it sounds one foot away from the microphone two feet away from
the microphone feet away from the microphone now I am speaking into the AKG Lyra about six
inches off of the microphone in a well treated room and now I'm about six inches off of the
microphone in a completely untreated room where I am definitely not being held hostage and this
is how the microphone sounds on the cardioid mode that's a lot of reverb now let's test the plosive
rejection please bring Pizza pronto please bring Pizza pronto please bring Pizza pronto
you
now to be as thorough as possible I do want to include a quick comparison to the blue Yeti X
so right now I am speaking into the AKG Lyra on the cardioid polar pattern my computer's gain is
set at around 50% and the microphone gain may be at 10% I am six inches off of the microphone and
here is how it sounds now I am speaking into the blue Yeti X at the exact same distance on
the cardioid polar pattern my computer's gain is set at 50% and the gain on the microphone is
set it may be around 15 or 20% and this is how the audio compares now with a sample rate of 48
kilohertz and an i/o buffer size of 64 samples we have a round-trip latency of 8 milliseconds
at an output latency of 3 and 1/2 milliseconds when we jump up to 128 samples we have a 10 and
a half millisecond trip or 4 and 1/2 milliseconds output latency and when we jump up to 256 samples
we have a 16 millisecond round-trip latency or a seven and a half millisecond output now
with a sample rate of 192 kilohertz and an i/o buffer size of 64 samples we have a 6
millisecond round-trip or 2 and 1/2 milliseconds output when we jump to 128 samples we have a 6.6
a millisecond round-trip or 2.7 millisecond output and when we jump up to 256 samples we
have a round-trip latency of 8 milliseconds or an output latency of 3.3 milliseconds
here we go we've got another mud and it's from AKG with all the polar pad
I can't pick but which one's for me
let me know in the comments down below because all of these polar patterns are so incredibly
confusingly named if you know anything about polar patterns what does it front back is that
similar to a front bottom is that gonna get me to monetize I don't know what's happening
anymore please send help I am sick and tired of multi-pattern USB condenser microphones that are
just made to try to chase and eat up some of the blue yeti market but i think that AKG has
successfully made a very compelling option in the USB multi pattern condenser microphone market and
first up in terms of pros it does record 24 bit 192 kilohertz it also offers zero latency
monitoring through the headphone output like all good USB microphones should it does have a gain
dial right on the back of the microphone and it has a USB C port which I always like to see
but then in terms of cons I would have liked to have seen a clip indicator light somewhere
on this microphone which it doesn't appear to have there is also no mixed dial for computer
playback and zero latency monitoring I also found the headphone volume control a little bit janky
where if you change your sample rate or if you power on and off the microphone then you have to
go in and reset the levels to what you want them to be and the last con that I have actually has
to do with the marketing of this microphone on the box and I believe on some of the product listings
it says 4k compatible Ultra HD audio the reason I don't like that there is no requirement for audio
for 4k video anything that is 48 kilohertz is compatible with video so I think that marketing is
quite misleading and it is meant to trick people into thinking oh I have 4k video I need to buy a
microphone that says 4k compatible audio that's not a thing so what are my overall thoughts of
this microphone on the electric guitar I rather enjoyed it on the rhythm because it had a very
crunchy and crisp top and at the same time a very punchy low-end but then when we jump over to the
lead guitar I think some of the higher notes start to get a little bit brittle and a little bit harsh
then on the acoustic guitar it offers a very open and airy sound and the way that I would describe
it is chai me it really captures the resonance of those upper strings quite a lot and brings it to
the forefront then on singing I would describe this as very very very clear it has a big boost
in the treble and air frequencies to my ears and the low frequencies in this thing are very tame
so the upper boost doesn't really get offset and in my opinion that's what leads to the recording
sounding so clear and detailed and lastly for spoken word if I can reuse a term I just used
I would call it a very detailed recording the upper end has a boost which makes the recording
very intelligible meaning it's very easy to understand the words that are being pronounced
and the microphone is also a bit sibling it is not the most painful or sharpest sibilants that
I have heard but it is definitely there so it's something to be aware of and as I mentioned during
the singing section the low end in this thing is very tame and if you're just a few inches off the
proximity effect it does not get out of hand so what I recommend to the AKG Lyra yeah kind of if
you think that the blue yeti X is a little bit too muddy or a little bit too bassy or it doesn't have
enough detail or clarity for you that is where the Lyra comes in and becomes a very compelling
and interesting option and the USB multi pattern condenser microphone market but it does have some
drawbacks to it like I mentioned first up there is no clipping indicator light secondly there is
no mixed dial between zero latency monitoring and computer playback both features which I think are
very important and also the build quality comes into question here with the web wobbliness of the
dials and with that being said I am just left here wondering what AKG could have done if they had not
focused on competing with the blue Yeti and rather created a $150 cardioid USB condenser microphone
and I think that would have been much more interesting if they had put the entire budget of
this microphone into a single capsule as opposed to for less quality capsules so they could fit all
of them in there and compete with the blue Yeti I think that would have been much more interesting
and maybe we'll see that in the future fingers crossed and that is going to wrap up for today
so if you found this video fun interesting or helpful go ahead and give me a thumbs up if you
hated it give me a big ol thumbs down if you want to see more videos click the logo down beneath me
if you want to hang out in the discord server link in the description and if you want to support the
channel and become one of these amazing people over here go ahead and click that joint button
and join at the $5 tier or higher it really does help me continue to bring you these videos until
next time thank you so much for watching thank you so much for listening I'll talk to you later bye