Customer Reviews

CAD U7 USB Desktop Condenser Recording Mic

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I spent a lot of time trying to find the best USB microphone and this is it.

I wanted a microphone primarily for Skype and other VOIP calls and net meetings, as well to be able to record certain meetings. I have the Logitech WebCam Pro 9000, which is a great webcam but in my opinion not a great microphone.

I wanted a USB microphone that would minimize the "echo effect" as well as the "scratch effect" certain net meetings would produce. The "echo effect" is pretty much what it sounds like and is most prominent when someones speakers are turned up too high, and the "scratch effect" is when the volume of your voice is too high for the microphone and it creates a scratching noise on the other end (sometimes happens in Skype). Given this microphone is a "condenser" I must say it has helped out dramatically.

I have this microphone in a conference room as well as my office, and it really does a good job at producing incredibly clear tone consistent sounds; it works well at picking up the quiet sounds as well as reducing the louder sounds.

The dimensions of this microphone are a little off as it's a little smaller than this page says. The dimensions are 4 x 3.25 x 1.1 inches. The microphone is obviously very easy to place.

This microphone comes with a 10 foot USB mini B cable (the 5 pin cable which is the same cable that plugs into most Blackberries) and you can easily replace it with a shorter or longer cable.

As for other microphones the closest contender i was able to find was the "MXL MXLAC404 High Quality USB Conference Room Microphone" which also looked like a very good microphone but i could not tell if the USB cable was replaceable, and it seemed a little big. I also have been using the "Logitech USB Desktop Microphone" which works well for the price (which is $20); I would say it is a good microphone for only one person that will be sitting at their desk talking and they don't mind having it right in front of them when they use it.

We use this microphone for doing Skype based conference calls. One microphone does a very good job of covering our large conference room. The feedback from the people on the other end has always been good. We have purchased 5 or 6 of these. I highly recommend them.

We had a baby shower in Kansas City for our daughter in law who lives in Los Angeles. We called it a "cyber shower" in the invitation. She is in the 8th month of her pregnancy and didn't want to travel back. We hooked up the laptop to the Big Screen TV and both parties hooked up on [...] and it worked perfectly. We even both served the same food. It was almost like they were in the room. The gifts were sent to LA and she opened them for everyone while we watched and talked. I decided in advance to purchase this add-on mic because I felt the small one on the laptop would not be sufficient with a crowd talking all at once. The party in LA also had 2 additional showers with other relatives, 1 in NY and 1 in Lima, Peru. They said ours was the best because we were the only party with the added mic. They could not hear the other two parties very well as people were talking over each other. It was a great $65 investment and we will use it everytime we call. And it was delivered to the door without a glitch and free shipping. Could not have been more pleased.

Believe it or not, I use this mic for recording music, and the sound quality is exceptional. It picks up an acoustic guitar accompanied by vocals beautifully. The backside has holes to slip over screws for mounting on a wall, which is how I use the mic. I have the mic mounted at mouth height, and to control how the volume of the guitar mixes with the vocals I step closer to the mic for more vocal volume, farther away for more guitar. My ears can detect no flaw in the audio through a very nice sound card and set of speakers, to me everything I record sounds like CD quality. The program I use to record is audacity.

The bad reviews on this mic that I've read are all about its performance with voice activation being too sensitive. In my opinion this mic is not suited for use with voice activation. It is meant to pick up sound from far away and in all directions, making voice activation go on with a pin drop in the other room. That is surely not a negative for any other use. It picks up all audio that can be heard in the room it's located in, and it does so very cleanly. I could not have recorded myself singing, playing guitar, and using a stomp box all at the same time half as well without a 3 mic setup and several hundred dollars more invested.

Best $70 I ever spent.

I bought this mic to use with Skype and FaceTime conference calls and group video. It works great! Great sound from all around the table/room without picking up a lot of background noise. Just plug it in and you're ready to go. Well worth the price.

We often have to do Skype video calls for our condo council meetings. The standard laptop built in mics did not pick up more than the 3 people seated the closest to the laptop. We tried the Sony ECM-F8 Electret Condenser Microphone with Flat, Boundary Effect Design, which was a noticable improvement, but just not quite good enough and the battery was a pain with different people responsible to set it up. This mike is a noticable improvement over the Sony and the range is better where we now hear all 7 members.

If you need it for a small group of say 4 - 5 persons and one person is in charge of maintaining the battery and turning it on and not forgetting to turn it off, then the Sony should be good enough, but for our application this unit was worth the extra cost.

set up on my mac laptop easily..and records very well. mono only of course. good sound quality and substantial build quality. omnidirectional so bear that in mind. very nice mic for recording speeches, meeting, sermons etc.

I bought this to use for my home automation with voice command. Doesn't work very well for voice recognition because the unit cuts off the first second of the audio. Seems like it take a second for the unit to kick on when it detects audio.

I purchased CAD U7, Triplite Active USB 10 foot extension cord and used this with Azam ([...]) software.

The quality of the microphone is phenominal from more than 10' away. (Make certain you use an active USB extension if needed). The above combination allows you to record phone calls, create audio diaries, do dicatations, tape audio meetings and record video with audio (camera required).

Simply put, the audio quality of this versus my Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 are almost indistinguishable. Additionally, my voice (2-4 feet away) did not compare to the high amplitude of the background noise it picked up (HVAC vents, people downstairs, my mouse clicking). I was expecting more.

I can see how this would be useful for conferences specifically, though, because it does pick up the smallest noises around the room. But then again, so does my webcam.