MXL AC404 USB Conferencing Microphone for Skype/AIM/Yahoo/MSN

I bought this for two purposes. One is to record presentations given to people in a room / given over a conference phone and to capture the sound in high quality and clearly. It does this perfectly, it is very sensitive and captures a very natural sound. Being a boundary mike it lessens the effect of room echo and picks up clearly over a range of 3-5 metres away from the speaker. The next best thing to a speaker wearing a radio mike. The second purpose is for me to record one to one consultations, so I can give the person a recording of the session. Again it performs brilliantly. So some criticism of it. Firstly it only shows as a USB audio codec, so you need to select that for recording. By default the level is very low, and you need to open the recording controls to increase the recording level from it. Default is about 1/10th, but I find that 1/4 level is much better, for speech, some clipping (over level) will not affect the end result at all. Like any microphone it has a proximity effect for bass ranges, and speaking close to it, it picks up a full range very clearly and with high fidelity. However it has no windscreen, and I have a tendency to 'pop' microphones, so any close vocal miking (which in all honesty is not what this is designed for) does require a pop filter. Another issue is that the capsule isolation could be better. On a surface it will pick up sounds through that surface, but it is easily solved with a small piece of foam rubber. I use a piece the same size as the base and only 3 mm thick, and it works very well with the unit sat on it. All in all I have given 5 stars as it does exactly what it says it does. I own and use a lot of microphones (mostly studio types) and this ranks very highly, and the drawbacks I mentioned are easily addressed.

Bought this to improve sound quality on conference calls on Skype, where it could be difficult to hear everybody around a table. With a Mac, it works straight out of the box (no software installation required). My initial impressions are extremely good, exceeding my expectations: good range, high clarity, no interference and feedback. It also works well for one-to-one conversations.

If you are a regular user of conference calls, Skype, Webex etc. via your laptop or PC you will know the frustration when some participants are too far from the built-in mike and therefore inaudible. Also, many laptops have poor recording quality and the mike can be in strange places, such as in the keyboard (like on my Toshiba). In that case all that the participants can hear is the hammering of keys, or else your wrist is resting over the mike hole and no-one can hear you. This portable USB mike solves these problems. Sensitive to the whole room, it can be placed in the centre of the table, away from keyboards, to pick up all participants clearly. Surprisingly good sound quality, even from people further away. The device also serves as a logical speaker device, but beware - you have to plug in a separate speaker using a 3mm jack plug. Otherwise your application selects the external speaker automatically, but nothing can be heard! (Alternatively you can select internal speakers in the relevant application, but you need to know to do this.) The MXL AC404 is quite heavy, so not a pocket device, but it's excellent performance is well worth it.

We purchased this after reading previous reviews on this site and are very happy we did. We use it for video conferencing in our conference room and those on the other end are able to hear everyone in the room (5m x 10m say). When we tested it ourselves we were actually quite surprised with how clear the sound was. The mic is a solid piece of kit and comes with a 2m USB cable. We have plugged the supplied cable into a USB repeater cable as we are approximately 8m (5m repeater cable and 3m basic extension) under the floor to the computer. To date we have had no problems with the setup. We have used the mic with both Skype and Microsoft Lync. Not the cheapest unit out there and not the most expensive, but we feel it is value for money at £78.

Love these and have bought a few now. No built in speaker so not as fancy as some but I tend to use it with screens that have built in speakers. It feels solid and heavy which means it tends to stay put where you leave it on the table. If you are using external speakers then it is best to plug the speakers into the back of the mic as some software (e.g. the Jan 2018 version of Skype) doesn't seem to like you having different input and output devices Mainly use it with Skype and for that it is excellent

Microphone is great - seller is awful! Buy elsewhere!

There were some problems with delivery, but overall quality of the microphone is amazing. We have tried a bunch of other microphones at meeting rooms, but only this one works without any interference.

I bought this because the microphone in my laptop required me to speak directly in to a very specific area otherwise it was very quiet. It has made a huge difference to video calls and allows me to speak and be heard properly from anywhere around my desk. It feels solid and robust and looks smart and unobtrusive.

Solid conference microphone. Used it for my discussion book club's in-person meetup where everyone except 1 person was there in my living room. Said person was participating online, hence the reason for this purchase. Worked like a charm. The online participant could hear everyone's discussion clearly in a 180 degree cone. Good sound quality. All went very smooth. Recommended.

Works fine. I was hoping for a little bit more range when using Windows 10 speech recognition, 1m is fine, 2m does not work reliably any more in my case. Otherwise, very good microphone.

The microphone works as advertised. The item I received from Amazon though, have some cosmetic scratches on the side and bottom. I feel I paid for a brand new item but received a second hand one.,

Wir haben lange ein Konferenzraum Mikrofon für unsere Firma gesucht und sind hier fündig geworden. Alternativen von Logitech etc sind hiermit nicht vergleichbar, dies ist ein professionells Mikro, dass alle Anforderungen erfüllt. Unser Raum fasst etwa 20 Mitarbeiter. Plug and play USB, skype meeting, windows, im raum frei bewegen und in normaler Lautstärke sprechen, alles wunderbar. Nach 4 Jahren und diversen Malen vom Tisch Runtergefallen ist das Schutzgitter nun abgegangen, aber das Mikro geht immer noch.

lo utilizamos en una sala de unos 7m por 6m para un grupo de 12 personas en video conferencia y funciona muy bien