Samson Meteor USB microphone

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Monday 20 June 2011 at 9:00am
Tags: audio | microphones |

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We like USB microphones. They're simple, consistent, and can be a perfect balance of quality and price, and as such are excellent tools for recording audio in all sorts of educational scenarios, as our USB Microphone Guide explains.

As is also well documented, I am something of a fan of the Samson Go Mic mini USB microphone, which I have used extensively for screencast voice recording, among other things. I was therefore interested to see that Samson have recently released a new USB microphone - the Meteor - and was keen to get hold of one for evaluation. One of our users - Mark Rogers, elearning administrator at the Leeds College of Music - tweeted us a couple of days ago to ask if we were going to 'review' it, and while we are not in the business of equipment reviews per se, I thought I'd oblige by giving some initial thoughts.

"@jiscdigital have you seen the new #Samson #Meteor microphone? Please review it in the near future!" via twitter - MarkRogers87

Well yes, Mark, I have, now you come to mention it:

The Samson Meteor on a desk earlier today

As you can see, the Meteor is a rather handsome chrome plated retro affair, and on unpacking it my initial thoughts were that, with its three legs folded up around the body, it looked rather like the kind of hand grenade that Flash Gordon might deploy. It has a solid metal body, with few seams, and feels heavy and robust. The legs fold down, but the joints are designed to be resistant enough that it can be positioned at a variety of angles, and there is a standard Unified Special 5/8" microphone stand thread on the bottom - though no shockmount is available that I know of, and no thread adaptor is supplied with the microphone, though they are easy enough to find if your stand has a 1/4" thread. When folded down, the back leg reveals the mini USB port (cable supplied) and 35mm headphone jack.

A hand grenade

One minor niggle with the Go Mic is the lack of a physical volume control, and the Meteor remedies this with a volume dial on the front (see picture), which also incorporates a button into the middle which mutes the microphone signal - very handy. The Blue Yeti USB mic also offers similar controls and they are again very welcome. Above this control is an LED which changes colour to signal USB power (blue), signal overload (red) and mute (amber). The colour scheme is slightly non-standard, and I would have preferred green (like the Go Mic) to trendy blue, but it works fine once you get the idea.

Installation is Plug & Play, and the Meteor was recognized immediately and automatically by Windows 7 and Mac OSX. Latency (delay between input signal and monitor signal output through the headphone jack) is low enough to be indiscernable, so you can monitor with confidence.

Being a USB microphone, the Meteor deals with all of its own digital conversion, not needing a soundcard in any way. Analogue to Digital conversion is carried out on board at up to 48kHz sampling rate and 16-bit resolution (i.e. slightly better than CD quality). Self noise is very respectably low, with quoted signal-to-noise ratio of 96dB.

So... how does it sound?

The Meteor's 25mm diaphragm gives a detailed, warm sound - noticeably richer than the sound given by Go Mic's 10mm capsule - and is as good on spoken word as any USB microphone I have used. Being a condenser capsule, frequency response is wide with great detail at high frequencies where dynamic capsules fear to tread, with a slight presence lift at 8-12KHz (see frequency plot below) adding 'air', and the sound is very natural, clear and precise. There is also only gentle bass roll-off below about 200Hz, and bass is forthright, so you need to make sure it is isolated from floor noise, and it does pick up thumps from my (admittedly heavy-handed) typing quite loudly when stood on the desk by the keyboard for screencast recording. In a more controlled environment its performance is exemplary, and I can imagine the Meteor would give excellent results recording acoustic instruments as well.

The Meteor offers only one pick-up pattern - cardioid unidirectional - which is absolutely fine for voice-over recording and the like, but the pattern switching available on the Go Mic (among others) - especially the omnidirectional mode, which makes it brilliant for recording meetings, interviews, or group sessions, multiple vocalists etc etc - is sadly absent. Although I realize pattern switching would have required a different (and dual diaphragm) capsule, I still think this is possibly a missed trick, as it is a quite common feature which greatly increases flexibility. Having said that, if you are going to have only one pattern, you want it to be cardioid.

All in all, the Meteor is a very good sounding USB condenser. While it does not (for me) offer the knockout value for money of the Go Mic, nor the supreme flexibility of the Blue Yeti, it scores very highly for both build quality and sound quality, and as such it is an excellent choice for voice-over, delivered in a stylish and solid no-frills package. Recommended.

• Type: Condenser
• Pattern(s): Cardioid uni-directional
• AD Converter: 48kHz/16-bit
• Frequency response: 20Hz-20kHz
• Output(s): USB, 3.5mm stereo mini jack headphone output
• Accessories: cable, drawstring velvet pouch
• Guide price: £90

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