**The Mauno Microphone: A Budget-Friendly Alternative to the Samsung Q2U**

When it comes to recording high-quality audio, having the right microphone is essential. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the Mauno Microphone, a budget-friendly alternative to the popular Samsung Q2U. With a price tag of $55 on Amazon, the Mauno Microphone is an attractive option for content creators and streamers who want to upgrade their audio equipment without breaking the bank.

**Comparison to the Samsung Q2U**

The Samsung Q2U is a high-end microphone that offers advanced features and superior sound quality. Its closest competitor in terms of style and features is the Mauno Microphone, which is priced at $55 on Amazon. However, when it comes to the price point, the Samsung Q2U starts at around $100 and can drop as low as $70 for the microphone alone. In comparison, the Mauno Microphone offers a similar feature set and quality sound, making it an attractive option for those who want to save money without sacrificing too much.

**Volume Adjustment and Other Features**

One of the standout features of the Mauno Microphone is its volume adjustment buttons. The microphone has two buttons on the top that allow users to adjust the volume of their recordings. However, these buttons only seem to control the volume of Windows or music playing in the background, rather than the actual microphone sound. This might be a minor issue for some users, but it's worth noting.

**Headphone Output and Zero-Latency Monitoring**

The Mauno Microphone also features a headphone output, which allows users to monitor their audio in real-time without having to use an external mixer or other equipment. This is especially useful for streamers and content creators who want to ensure that their audio is sounding its best at all times.

**Additional Accessories and Packaging**

One of the perks of buying the Mauno Microphone is the comprehensive packaging it comes with. The microphone includes a shock mount, pop filter, stand, USB cable, and XLR cable, making it a complete package for dynamic microphones. This makes it an attractive option for those who want everything they need to get started right out of the box.

**Sound Quality and Tuning**

When using the Mauno Microphone via USB, it sounds okay but lacks a little bass compared to its XLR output. However, with EQ adjustments using software like Steel Series Sonar, which is available for free, users can fine-tune their sound quality and get more out of this microphone. The microphone also features an all-metal construction, making it feel well-made and durable.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, the Mauno Microphone offers a great balance of price, performance, and features that make it an attractive option for content creators and streamers who want to upgrade their audio equipment without breaking the bank. While it may not be as good as the Samsung Q2U in terms of sound quality, it's still a solid choice for those on a budget. With its comprehensive packaging, headphone output, and ability to tune with EQ software, the Mauno Microphone is definitely worth considering for anyone looking for a high-quality microphone at an affordable price.

**Stream Tech and Gear**

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: encould this be the best budget microphone for streamers and content creators let's find out my name is chris this is coalition gaming and today i'll be your stream technician this is the mauno hd 300t it is a combo xlr and usb microphone all metal construction feels pretty solid and tough and durable has like i said usb and xlr has a monitor or a headphone output for zero latency monitoring uh microphone or rather volume control buttons on it as well as a on off sliding switch and like i said this is a dynamic microphone which is honestly i'd say this is a really good option for streamers and content creators due to the characteristics of what a dynamic microphone is and that's really good noise rejection for by design of how they are and also included in the package with this microphone is usb type-c cable yes type c not mini usb like the samsung qtu which is its most similar competitor you get a mic stand of course you get a shock mount for the microphone so that's actually a nice inclusion and xlr cable if you're going to be using xlr and also a pop filter right now this microphone is on amazon for around 55 dollars it does fluctuate in price but at that price point given everything that's included so far it seems we're off to a good start but how does this microphone sound well let's get down to the desktop and test it out alright so this mic right here is the avermedia live streamer mic 330 it's a dynamic microphone as uh you can see it's one of the tube style ones you talk into it like oh i guess top address instead of side address like a lot of condenser microphones this is the same style of mic for lack of a better way to put it as the mauno microphone now this one i've applied eq to it so it sounds better than it would normally but let me go ahead and remove that eq and you guys will see it makes a big difference and now all eq has been turned off on this microphone and uh yeah i'm sure you guys can tell that there is a pretty obvious difference um this mic to me landed in a place where a lot of microphones started coming out that kind of relied on eq to really get the most out of them i would say like the rode pod mic falls in the same category which makes sense this is a 100 dynamic microphone and there's a lot of competition in that space nowadays let's turn the equalizer back on okay and the eq has been reapplied and now you can really hear the difference i'm sure anyways with this mic out of the way let's get the mauno plugged in and let's see how that sounds alright and i've switched over to the maono microphone and here we are you can see how it set up in my setup and how it sounds so this is with no eq this is the mic raw through my avermedia live streamer nexus xlr interface we'll be testing the usb as well after this but again this is how the mic sounds raw let's add some eq and see how it sounds after that now eq has been applied to this microphone a little bit of treble added a little bit of mids pulled out a little bit of bass added and i think it actually sounds pretty good for the money at least competitive with with the other microphone but again definitely i think the um this microphone sounded better versus this one when no eq was available i've gone ahead and turned the noise gate off as well so you can hear if this is picking up any noise in the line or any sort of white noise background noise or anything like that maybe how good its rejection is but uh yeah generally though if you're going to be streaming or doing anything like that having some kind of noise gate or noise reduction filter or whether that be rtx voice or obs noise suppression or something like that is recommended either way but being a dynamic already gives it a leg up in that department and now with eq it's definitely i guess on par with the 60 to 100 range of microphones the other mic that's similar to this one the samsung q2u sort of fits the build too it punches above its weight class and i think that's what's happening with this microphone as well now whether it can pull that off over usb remains to be seen but we'll be testing that next but first let's do some other tests with this microphone this is me talking directly into it right in front of it this is me talking from the side this is me talking from the other side and uh this is me talking from behind of it uh to the best of my ability at least this is me talking into the microphone from a few feet away this is me talking to the microphone from about eight feet away and now we're back in front of the microphone what about plosive rejection right now i have the included pop filter on it so let's see how it sounds with that going podcastage podcastage please bring pizza pronto podcast is the man actually and now with the pop filter out of the way podcastage please bring pizza pizza pizza pronto i'm not so sure how i feel about the plosive test stuff but if you're going to be using the microphone i usually would suggest to use it a little bit off-axis from your mouth anyways much like i'm using it here and you'll also greatly reduce the chance of plosives when you do that it was wasn't too bad but it wasn't perfect either in terms of plosive rejection but okay i gotta say though one thing i do like about this microphone is that for its usb usability it uses type c which is uh well the main competitor being the samsung qtu which uses many usb so old at least this one has a more up-to-date connector okay and i've moved it into usb now what you're hearing now is this microphone through usb but i'm noticing something looking at my bars in obs uh it doesn't seem to run as hot over usb which means i probably need to go into windows and make sure that the volume on it is turned up enough in the windows setting that's probably all the issue is so let me check that it was at 92 and now i moved it up to 100 and it still looks like like maybe it has a built-in compressor or something so as far as peaking the microphone i think it's a little harder to do over usb microphone peeking peeking yeah it's it's actually kind of hard to peak it and in usb mode now if we switch it over to the xlr you'll see it's a little easier to peak it and now we're back via xlr and now i can probably peak the microphone a little harder peak it actually it's still fighting getting into the red pretty well all right but this is with eq this is the same mic with eq via my interface and now if i switch it back to usb you'll see how it sounds raw with no eq via usb and now we are via usb again and i'm just going to be quieter so i'm going to have to adjust for that but yeah there you go now if you're going to want to eq this microphone over usb you're not going to be able to do that so easily for usage in all software um well actually a new program from steel series called sonar will let you apply eq to any usb microphone um and for usage in discord skype obs whatever and and i'll link some tutorials down in the description below for you guys to do that so you can get more of how this mic sounds via xlr but through usb back on xlr i want to mention one more thing here is that one of the benefits to these kinds of microphones as well is for console streamers or streamers who use the two pc setups and something like that because the usb and the xlr outputs are both active at the same time so you can have one mic going to a computer the usb connection i would assume and then an xlr well i guess the actual interface would go to your main computer and then the the usb would go to another computer that way you can have audio from the microphone going to two different places at the same exact time without having to need any complicated audio routing setup stuff you later just plug one to one computer well through the interface at least then plug the usb into the other computer and you're good to go just to prove that i'm going to unmute the usb portion of this microphone and you probably will hear me doubled now you're probably hearing me doubled proving that both outputs are active at the same time so this microphone right now is going for 55 bucks on amazon and uh it's closest competitor in terms of style and features would be the samsung q2u as as i've mentioned multiple times the samsung q2u being uh around a hundred dollars all the way down to about seventy dollars depending on like what if you get a package or something like that so let's say seventy dollars for the microphone alone versus fifty five dollars and you're getting i would say probably roughly equivalent quality a similar feature set a better usb connector um it's kind of a no-brainer if you're considering the q2u but it's too close in price to some higher-end microphones especially if you're considering an xlr then if you wanted to save some money you probably wouldn't be sacrificing much of anything by going with the mauno this microphone right here it does have some really nice features as well something else that the samsung q2 doesn't have is it has volume adjustment on the buttons right here you can't see them there but it has volume adjustment buttons on it and a slide switch as well so if you wanted to mute the microphone by sliding the switch on it you can do it that way as well what i'm seeing with the microph the the plus and minus volume control buttons on it is it's controlling volume of windows not volume of the microphone so i'm not sure if that's configurable or not but uh every time i press it it wants to change the music of my or the volume of like my music or something that i was playing so up to you how useful that part is it does have a headphone output for zero latency monitoring so you have that too you could use this basically as your sound card as well so if you had your headphones connected to it you had your microphone you have your your usb connected to it this is speaking via usb you can have everything routed through it and you'll be good you'll have the monitoring you'll have all your game audio and all that coming through it as well but headphone output up to you how you guys want to use that um overall pretty solid feature set something else that's a bonus versus the q2u is that this comes with the shock mount this comes with the pop filter it comes with a stand obviously and it comes with usb cable and an xlr cable so it's pretty much the complete package for a dynamic microphone and honestly it sounds pretty good for the money the usb my conclusion on how it sounds via usb not so nice it's it's okay it's definitely a little more nasally definitely needs the tuning and especially if you're side by side versus tuned xlr so fortunately that steel series sonar app to get it eq'd over usb is free and pretty easy to use again i'll drop a link in the description down below for you guys to have a look at if you wanted to get one of these and wanted to tune your usb microphones be that a headset or a microphone like this you could do it with that app but like i mentioned earlier for microphones being better with eq obviously it's they're all gonna be better with eq just how much better some microphones are gonna be that avermedia needed it so it's miles better with eq whereas this one it is a lot better with eq you can get away without needing it's still very clear how over usb it seems to lack a little bass it does have it a little bit of bass in xlr with no iq but yeah you're going to want to eq this mic but all things considered it's pretty solid all metal construction as well it feels well made can't really complain especially for 55 bucks could this be the best budget dynamic microphone with the max features and great build quality with a good sound in its price range or just in general maybe but if you're also wondering what the best budget webcam could be you know what i have a video for you it'll be linked right over here and down in the description below the best budget camera for live streaming to pair with a possibly the best budget microphone for live streaming maybe we'll see check out that video drop a comment over there if you have any questions about this microphone or any comments i'd love to discuss with you guys in the comments below drop a comment down here and let's talk tech let's talk stream tech let's stop microphones all that stuff if you like this video you know what to do hit that subscribe button and that bell so you don't miss a single upload also i stream to twitch every friday at 8 pm pacific at twitch.tv coalition gaming crew so feel free to stop by drop a follow and let's continue talking more stream tech and gear and all sorts of stuff i hope you found this video entertaining informative or otherwise useful my name is chris this is coalition gaming and i've been your stream technician i'll see you guys in next video byecould this be the best budget microphone for streamers and content creators let's find out my name is chris this is coalition gaming and today i'll be your stream technician this is the mauno hd 300t it is a combo xlr and usb microphone all metal construction feels pretty solid and tough and durable has like i said usb and xlr has a monitor or a headphone output for zero latency monitoring uh microphone or rather volume control buttons on it as well as a on off sliding switch and like i said this is a dynamic microphone which is honestly i'd say this is a really good option for streamers and content creators due to the characteristics of what a dynamic microphone is and that's really good noise rejection for by design of how they are and also included in the package with this microphone is usb type-c cable yes type c not mini usb like the samsung qtu which is its most similar competitor you get a mic stand of course you get a shock mount for the microphone so that's actually a nice inclusion and xlr cable if you're going to be using xlr and also a pop filter right now this microphone is on amazon for around 55 dollars it does fluctuate in price but at that price point given everything that's included so far it seems we're off to a good start but how does this microphone sound well let's get down to the desktop and test it out alright so this mic right here is the avermedia live streamer mic 330 it's a dynamic microphone as uh you can see it's one of the tube style ones you talk into it like oh i guess top address instead of side address like a lot of condenser microphones this is the same style of mic for lack of a better way to put it as the mauno microphone now this one i've applied eq to it so it sounds better than it would normally but let me go ahead and remove that eq and you guys will see it makes a big difference and now all eq has been turned off on this microphone and uh yeah i'm sure you guys can tell that there is a pretty obvious difference um this mic to me landed in a place where a lot of microphones started coming out that kind of relied on eq to really get the most out of them i would say like the rode pod mic falls in the same category which makes sense this is a 100 dynamic microphone and there's a lot of competition in that space nowadays let's turn the equalizer back on okay and the eq has been reapplied and now you can really hear the difference i'm sure anyways with this mic out of the way let's get the mauno plugged in and let's see how that sounds alright and i've switched over to the maono microphone and here we are you can see how it set up in my setup and how it sounds so this is with no eq this is the mic raw through my avermedia live streamer nexus xlr interface we'll be testing the usb as well after this but again this is how the mic sounds raw let's add some eq and see how it sounds after that now eq has been applied to this microphone a little bit of treble added a little bit of mids pulled out a little bit of bass added and i think it actually sounds pretty good for the money at least competitive with with the other microphone but again definitely i think the um this microphone sounded better versus this one when no eq was available i've gone ahead and turned the noise gate off as well so you can hear if this is picking up any noise in the line or any sort of white noise background noise or anything like that maybe how good its rejection is but uh yeah generally though if you're going to be streaming or doing anything like that having some kind of noise gate or noise reduction filter or whether that be rtx voice or obs noise suppression or something like that is recommended either way but being a dynamic already gives it a leg up in that department and now with eq it's definitely i guess on par with the 60 to 100 range of microphones the other mic that's similar to this one the samsung q2u sort of fits the build too it punches above its weight class and i think that's what's happening with this microphone as well now whether it can pull that off over usb remains to be seen but we'll be testing that next but first let's do some other tests with this microphone this is me talking directly into it right in front of it this is me talking from the side this is me talking from the other side and uh this is me talking from behind of it uh to the best of my ability at least this is me talking into the microphone from a few feet away this is me talking to the microphone from about eight feet away and now we're back in front of the microphone what about plosive rejection right now i have the included pop filter on it so let's see how it sounds with that going podcastage podcastage please bring pizza pronto podcast is the man actually and now with the pop filter out of the way podcastage please bring pizza pizza pizza pronto i'm not so sure how i feel about the plosive test stuff but if you're going to be using the microphone i usually would suggest to use it a little bit off-axis from your mouth anyways much like i'm using it here and you'll also greatly reduce the chance of plosives when you do that it was wasn't too bad but it wasn't perfect either in terms of plosive rejection but okay i gotta say though one thing i do like about this microphone is that for its usb usability it uses type c which is uh well the main competitor being the samsung qtu which uses many usb so old at least this one has a more up-to-date connector okay and i've moved it into usb now what you're hearing now is this microphone through usb but i'm noticing something looking at my bars in obs uh it doesn't seem to run as hot over usb which means i probably need to go into windows and make sure that the volume on it is turned up enough in the windows setting that's probably all the issue is so let me check that it was at 92 and now i moved it up to 100 and it still looks like like maybe it has a built-in compressor or something so as far as peaking the microphone i think it's a little harder to do over usb microphone peeking peeking yeah it's it's actually kind of hard to peak it and in usb mode now if we switch it over to the xlr you'll see it's a little easier to peak it and now we're back via xlr and now i can probably peak the microphone a little harder peak it actually it's still fighting getting into the red pretty well all right but this is with eq this is the same mic with eq via my interface and now if i switch it back to usb you'll see how it sounds raw with no eq via usb and now we are via usb again and i'm just going to be quieter so i'm going to have to adjust for that but yeah there you go now if you're going to want to eq this microphone over usb you're not going to be able to do that so easily for usage in all software um well actually a new program from steel series called sonar will let you apply eq to any usb microphone um and for usage in discord skype obs whatever and and i'll link some tutorials down in the description below for you guys to do that so you can get more of how this mic sounds via xlr but through usb back on xlr i want to mention one more thing here is that one of the benefits to these kinds of microphones as well is for console streamers or streamers who use the two pc setups and something like that because the usb and the xlr outputs are both active at the same time so you can have one mic going to a computer the usb connection i would assume and then an xlr well i guess the actual interface would go to your main computer and then the the usb would go to another computer that way you can have audio from the microphone going to two different places at the same exact time without having to need any complicated audio routing setup stuff you later just plug one to one computer well through the interface at least then plug the usb into the other computer and you're good to go just to prove that i'm going to unmute the usb portion of this microphone and you probably will hear me doubled now you're probably hearing me doubled proving that both outputs are active at the same time so this microphone right now is going for 55 bucks on amazon and uh it's closest competitor in terms of style and features would be the samsung q2u as as i've mentioned multiple times the samsung q2u being uh around a hundred dollars all the way down to about seventy dollars depending on like what if you get a package or something like that so let's say seventy dollars for the microphone alone versus fifty five dollars and you're getting i would say probably roughly equivalent quality a similar feature set a better usb connector um it's kind of a no-brainer if you're considering the q2u but it's too close in price to some higher-end microphones especially if you're considering an xlr then if you wanted to save some money you probably wouldn't be sacrificing much of anything by going with the mauno this microphone right here it does have some really nice features as well something else that the samsung q2 doesn't have is it has volume adjustment on the buttons right here you can't see them there but it has volume adjustment buttons on it and a slide switch as well so if you wanted to mute the microphone by sliding the switch on it you can do it that way as well what i'm seeing with the microph the the plus and minus volume control buttons on it is it's controlling volume of windows not volume of the microphone so i'm not sure if that's configurable or not but uh every time i press it it wants to change the music of my or the volume of like my music or something that i was playing so up to you how useful that part is it does have a headphone output for zero latency monitoring so you have that too you could use this basically as your sound card as well so if you had your headphones connected to it you had your microphone you have your your usb connected to it this is speaking via usb you can have everything routed through it and you'll be good you'll have the monitoring you'll have all your game audio and all that coming through it as well but headphone output up to you how you guys want to use that um overall pretty solid feature set something else that's a bonus versus the q2u is that this comes with the shock mount this comes with the pop filter it comes with a stand obviously and it comes with usb cable and an xlr cable so it's pretty much the complete package for a dynamic microphone and honestly it sounds pretty good for the money the usb my conclusion on how it sounds via usb not so nice it's it's okay it's definitely a little more nasally definitely needs the tuning and especially if you're side by side versus tuned xlr so fortunately that steel series sonar app to get it eq'd over usb is free and pretty easy to use again i'll drop a link in the description down below for you guys to have a look at if you wanted to get one of these and wanted to tune your usb microphones be that a headset or a microphone like this you could do it with that app but like i mentioned earlier for microphones being better with eq obviously it's they're all gonna be better with eq just how much better some microphones are gonna be that avermedia needed it so it's miles better with eq whereas this one it is a lot better with eq you can get away without needing it's still very clear how over usb it seems to lack a little bass it does have it a little bit of bass in xlr with no iq but yeah you're going to want to eq this mic but all things considered it's pretty solid all metal construction as well it feels well made can't really complain especially for 55 bucks could this be the best budget dynamic microphone with the max features and great build quality with a good sound in its price range or just in general maybe but if you're also wondering what the best budget webcam could be you know what i have a video for you it'll be linked right over here and down in the description below the best budget camera for live streaming to pair with a possibly the best budget microphone for live streaming maybe we'll see check out that video drop a comment over there if you have any questions about this microphone or any comments i'd love to discuss with you guys in the comments below drop a comment down here and let's talk tech let's talk stream tech let's stop microphones all that stuff if you like this video you know what to do hit that subscribe button and that bell so you don't miss a single upload also i stream to twitch every friday at 8 pm pacific at twitch.tv coalition gaming crew so feel free to stop by drop a follow and let's continue talking more stream tech and gear and all sorts of stuff i hope you found this video entertaining informative or otherwise useful my name is chris this is coalition gaming and i've been your stream technician i'll see you guys in next video bye\n"