Audio Technica Cardioid Condenser USB Microphone

What can I say - the Audio quality is absolutely top notch for narration and vocals.
I purchased this to to use as a mic to sing on and it doesn't disappoint regarding quality as long as you ensure you buy a good stand and shock-mount/pop filter it's up there with studio quality microphones of a much higher price.
What is unbelievable is the latency between what you sing or say and when you hear it.
When i sing i need to be able to hear myself in pretty much real time - and this usb version has problems delivering a good live feed of what's going into it via it's only USB output.
I downloaded "ASIO for all v 2.10" and noted minor improvements - I also changed my sound-card for a top level model,but sadly still at least a 250-300 ms delay exists with this usb version on live monitoring.
If anyone has found a fix for this please let me know!

It's this delay that can make you sing at the wrong time,hearing what you are doing at the wrong time when trying to stay in time and key is impossible to focus and so irritating!
If there are ever updates to reduce this latency issue this would be my new best friend,and if you are recording sources that do not require live monitoring it likely will be
So for now I remain disappointed because I cannot use this microphone as a studio microphone is required to be used.
Extremely low noise very good frequency response -the AT2020USB is better suited for someone who might want to record narration without monitoring.
I wish Audio Technica had published the details of the latency issue as i would have purchased a microphone with a live output.
Im going to have to go down the route of XLR and phantom powered microphones now to get What i bought this microphone to do,so not good considering the financial outlay.
Five stars for the audio quality - minus two stars for the latency.

After recording two podcasts, I upgraded my basic logitech microphone to the Audio Technica AT2020. The sound quality is pretty amazing, especially for podcasting.

To compare the quality, you could listen to episode 1 of [...] (technical podcast), then compare it to episode 6. I think you will agree that it's significantly clearer now.

My initial sound test did not produce the desired results, but, then I realised I had it facing round the wrong way... that might sound silly, but, the USB connector is in the front, not the back, and when it faces 'the wrong way', the microphone points at you - like you think it might need to.

Turning it around (with the blue led light illuminated internally showing towards you), the sound became very clear and had nice depth.

A tip for recording though, make sure your computer is as far away from the microphone as possible, because fan noise can be a problem, or noise travelling through your desk. I learned to put the microphone on a spongy mouse-mat to reduce any vibration noise and to keep the cable off the desk too.

A great purchase, my only negative point is that it would have made more sense for the USB cable to be at the back.

Rob
BitBanter (technical podcast)

Great self powered mic, designed to produce rich crisp sound off USB. Been very good. Are mcs on the market with XLR and USB together though. Still, very happy with this.