Beta 57A

Professional mix engineer here: not really. Here's my in-depth, long-winded explanation of streamer mics. **tl;dr** buy from a reputable brand instead of some random Amazon mic, and avoid the SM7B at all costs because it's marked up simply because people don't know better and buy it anyway and you can get equivalent mics at 1/5 the price. The bigger question is not "XLR or USB", it's "dynamic or condenser" and "real audio brand or shitty random Amazon brand nobody has ever heard of", and to that, there is a clear answer: if you're a streamer, you want a dynamic mic from a real trusted audio brand. You can get away with sounding pretty much on-par with any dynamic XLR mic so long as you get one of the decent USB mics: **Shure MV6** or **MV7**, **Rode PodMic**, **AT2040usb** (admittedly not the biggest AT fan but they get the job done if you work with someone who knows how to set it up right). Not many other good USB options besides those though, but you're honestly not going to get much of a difference between an MV7 and an SM7B. The SM7B is completely overhyped and price-surged, it's basically just a glorified SM58 at 5x the price and a slightly darker EQ profile; it suits some voices and absolutely ruins others while the SM58 is pretty widely regarded as an "everyone's mic". If you ask a child to draw a microphone, they'll draw an SM58, that's how ubiquitous it is. That being said, the MV6 and MV7 are basically just USB SM58s with again a slightly altered EQ profile. When it comes to dynamic microphones, the most expensive one that's worth getting is the Electro Voice RE-20, but even then unless you're a musician, you really don't need one. As a streamer, your audio is going to go through so many series of compression that you'll hit a point where a $20000 Sony C-800G is going to sound about the same as a $100 Shure SM58 after it goes through OBS's compression algorithm and then Twitch's compression algorithm. With XLR mics too, your preamps matter just as much. Even if you don't have internet compression algorithms in-play and your recording audio right into a DAW, if your preamps suck, that C-800G is not going to sound like $20000, so if good audio is the concern, then your interface has to have crystal clear preamps (RME, Audient, UAD, Motu) and even then I wouldn't even think about running an expensive mic like that without also having a dedicated preamp like a Neve 1073 or a UAD 610 going into my interface. But this is far beside the point now so let's get back on track. Pretty much any Shure product is gonna be the Nokia of mics, they're Buy It For Life products. Just go ask r/BIFL. My own personal experience, I used to tour with a hardcore punk band back in 2015 and sang with an SM58. We had a spare in the van just in case, but we never had to bring it out. We were a pretty aggressive and performative band for what it's worth, and every single night on that tour I would hit that damn microphone against the floor, smash it against crash cymbals, throw it down at multiple points to jump into the crowd or after a song for emphasis. Fucker didn't even dent. Of course it still worked and sounded the same as a brand new one. They're nigh indestructible. I'm not sponsored by Shure but I wish I was because I've probably convinced half a dozen vtuber singers to get a Beta 57A in the last three months alone. If you sing, that's the budget XLR mic I recommend. Last thing with Shure mics: buy new from a reputable dealer. Shure mics have been industry standard for almost a century now. With that pedigree, they are obviously very prominently counterfeited. Unless you know the tell-tale signs of counterfeited Shure products, you don't want to risk buying them used and getting ripped off. The Elgato Wave3 is decent if you have a room that suits it, but most streamers don't know or care enough to figure that out so it's not worth the risk. It's a "results may vary" and "decent risk" mic that's essentially the same price as any of those dynamic mics which will pose a significantly lower risk of having background noise issues. I set microphones up for streamers every single week, I've probably done almost half a thousand filter setups for streamers over the last two years, and the #1 problem causers I've seen have been the Wave3, Blue Yeti, and random ass brands. SM7B is always "decent", but are completely unnecessary when you could save $400 and get an SM58 instead for almost the same (if not better and more voice-suitable) quality. General rule of thumb is avoid any "streamer gear" brands or no-name Amazon brands (whatever the fuck a FIFINE, Maono, or HyperX is) and instead trust actual audio brands that have been around for several decades instead. That's a real shocker, there. Who knew that if you wanted good audio you should just buy from the actual audio brands instead of some random "streamer gear" startup. There's a reason Shure has been in business for nearly a century but FIFINE isn't even notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about them. That's your key tell right there.

You can get away with figuring out for the most part with YouTube tutorials, though almost all of them are going to teach you the wrong things, it's more of a guide to "how I got my thing sounding okay" but audio varies dramatically and takes so many factors into account: microphone, the preamps, the individual voice, the room itself, etc. so what works for one person might not work for others. That's why you see one person saying one specific mic works fine for them and someone else saying it's the worst piece of shit they've ever used. Actually learning audio is an actual discipline. It takes years of practice and training your own ear to truly figure out. That's why I took up helping people in streaming with their audio, because I do audio fulltime and stream as a hobby and wanted to fill the niche gap in the streaming space where there aren't a lot of audio professionals to help people set things up; idk how much it adheres to the sub rules and I really wasn't here to advertise (I'm genuinely just passionate about audio and wanna help streamers because I have **been there before**) so I won't post a link or anything, but I *do* offer fairly affordable OBS filter setups on VGen if you look me up on there, I'm probably the top result. What I'll also say: despite owning several professional mics upwards and over $1000 each, I actually stream with a $40 mic myself, a Blue Snowball, since space is pretty limited and my interface is in a bit of an inconvenient location to have stuff plugged in while not actively recording. Granted, there's a few caveats to my usage of the Snowball: 1. It's an older version of the Snowball, prior to the Logitech acquisition that basically changed every single thing about Blue microphones from quality control to actual components 2. I stream out of an already professionally treated recording studio, so the physical space of the room is suitable for a loud ass cheap condenser microphone 3. I also set it up pretty dramatically since I'm a mix engineer and know exactly what to do to make it sound good. What I'll also say: if you are deadset on good audio **and** aesthetic, Colorware sells Shure MV7's and SM58s with pretty much any color you could imagine. There's absolutely a light purple on there, matte or glossy too from what I remember. I don't think they do the MV6 though, last I checked. They're a tiny bit above MSRP since it's obviously like a custom shell they have to attach, but yeah. Also not sponsored lol Lastly, I'll say that if streaming with a second person and having echo is an issue, you will likely be able to remedy a lot of that with a good dynamic mic or possibly even one of those lapel mics you see people with all over YouTube. Think of the investment this way: the Elgato Wave3 is $150. It will eventually stop working, either because the parts aren't high quality, or because the software and drivers will someday no longer be supported. The Shure SM58 has been around since the mid-1960s. You could take an SM58 from 60 years ago and plug it into a modern XLR interface and have it still work. That Wave3 is going to be nothing but a fried-out paperweight in 60 years for the same price.