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$17 is an absurd price for a great USB mic, the Neat Bumblebee 2

Sound better in games, meetings and everything else.

neat bumblebee 2 microphone on a desk showing its small stature
Image credit: Neat/Rock Paper Shotgun

High-quality microphones can be quite expensive - I recently reviewed SteelSeries' Alias mics which start at $180 - but you can still get a great mic for far less than you expect.

Case in point: you can get the excellent Neat Bumblebee 2 USB mic for $17 at Woot right now, using the code TECHELF to knock off an extra $3 off the list price of $20. This mic originally retailed for $100 and attracted strong reviews at that price point - but at $17, it's cheap enough to recommend to literally anyone that uses a computer.

This will be a big improvement in sound quality over any headset microphone, so it'll be a worthwhile upgrade for game comms, work meetings and video calls alike. Plus, if you do want to record music, do podcasts, record voiceover or other more creative pursuits, this is an awesome choice. The mic comes with a desk stand which works fine, but you can unscrew this and put the mic on a cheap arm to make its positioning more convenient.

The Bumblebee 2 is very easy to use, as it's a USB microphone - you can just plug it into your PC/Mac/phone/PS5/whatever, then play with the multi-function dial on the front to adjust the mic's sensitivity and playback volume. There's a 3.5mm port for zero-latency monitoring of the sound you're recording, always useful, and a mute button with LED that's more trustworthy than a software control in your app of choice.

For the money, this is a phenomenal value microphone and well worth picking up if you live in the US!

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Will Judd avatar

Will Judd

Contributor

Will Judd is a journeyman from the forges of Digital Foundry, here to spread the good word about hardware deals and StarCraft.

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