Blue Snowball iCE USB Streaming Microphone - White
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Price: £44.99
Brand: Blue
Description: Blue Snowball iCE USB Streaming Microphone - White, USB wired connection, High-quality sound, Ideal for recording and streaming, Custom cardioid condensor capsule, Skype and Discord certified, Plug and play connection, Mac and PC compatibility.
Category: Microphones
Merchant: Box.co.uk
Product ID: 1648546
Delivery time: 1
Delivery cost: 2.95
MPN: 988-000181
EAN: 5099206084018
Author: Matty
Rating: 5
Review: Great mic for gamers and content creators. The sound quality is good and is durable. Would 100% recommend for any looking for a usb mic or wanting to start creating videos or just wanting to chat to mates on discord.
Author: oniony
Rating: 3
Review: I wanted a semi-decent mic to do some audiobook narration so settled on this one because it was relatively cheap compared to some out there. It worked tremendously well at first: it gave a very clear recording. The mic is ridiculously sensitive to background noises though: it would pick up my dog drinking downstairs in the kitchen when I would be upsrairs in a different room. I think the sensitivity is a property of these condenser microphones so I do wonder if would have been better off with a dynamic microphone instead. The microphone looks good, plugs into your PC via the USB connection (micro USB on the one I have) and has no switches or adjustments: a solitary red light on the front announces it is alive and that's it. The mic feels good in the hand as it's a tactile shape and has quite a bit of weight to it (more on that later), has a nice case design with cut-outs, wire mesh and the chrome Blue badge. But my complaint with this microphone, other than the sensitivity, is its durability. You see the Blue Snowball ICE is a sphere and, whilst this makes it look very cute on your desk on its little tripod, but it's very easy for it to slip from your hand and roll away. And I've rolled this mic away now on three separate occasions attaching it to my microphone stand: the first bending the USB plug and subsequently making the mic have a fault where it produces a ton of static until I bash it to submission a few times. So I've not been using this microphone recently, because it works for a while and then the static comes back. In my Discord calls I get complaints and I have to sit there bashing it until it works again. I had put this down to damage to the internal microphone but curiosity got the better of me and I finally disassembled the unit to see what was going on. So the mic consists of a plastic shell in two halves, each half is covered with black wire mesh on the inside with a layer of foam behind that. At the bottom is a large piece of loose metal containing the screw thread for mounting it: this is held in place simply by the two halves of the case squeezing it. I was surprised to see this is actually designed to rotate back and forth: mine has never done this because the wire mesh had not been cut enough so would prevent it rotating. Inside is a big chunk of metal which is where a lot of the weight comes from and mounted on this is a circuit board which slots into the back of the case exposing the USB slot and the microphone itself. The microphone sits on a piece of plastic shaped like an '8', which presumably adds some noise isolation between the mic and the casing. The mic (like the LED) is then plugged into the circuit board by the flimsiest of all connectors and I had noticed they had both come loose. So I spent a few minutes wiggling the mic connector about and was able to reproduce the problems I have been experiencing with static. So my bashing of the mic is obviously causing this connector to move about and get a better connection. I managed to make the fix more permanent by slightly bending the pins so that the held tighter to the connector. I might even cut this connector off and solder it in place if the problem recurs. So I'm pretty disappointed with the design of this microphone. Whilst it looks good, it's nothing more than the tiniest little microphone attached poorly to the ADC circuitry in a fancy-pants case. I kinda wish I'd just bought one of the cheap Chinese ones now that would at least have a better electrical connection. Anyhow, at least I now have a fix.
