Once again, entry-level studio microphone versus the pro daddy out there. Can the old school beat the newcomer out of water?
We have been through the details of this FIFINE K688 studio microphone from past blog posts. If you haven't, here's the brief recap: It's a dynamic mic with a dual connection of both USB and XLR. The most important bit is that it means you don't lose the upgradability in the future when you find the USB audio quality struggles a bit for your use scenario, such as podcast, vocal, or even instrument. But if you haven't got to that zone yet, the USB connection provides some convenient cool features with which you can fiddle, and in most cases, they actually help a lot. Like the touch mute with LED indicator, or the live monitoring headphone jack if you're the voice-over artist who must hear yourself throughout the recording process.
If you haven't had an idea of what a studio mic on a budget is capable of, let the audio quality speak for itself. And it's not the entry-level digital signal from the microphone but the analog one! We're going to record the FIFINE microphone using the XLR cable in the booth and compare them with some acoustic guitar recordings. Don't get spoiled, check out the video clip before we get to the conclusion!
As an experienced mixing engineer @audiosweetener on YouTube, he thought both microphones performed really well. His first impression is that the Shure SM7B was a bit more flat overall, and had a bit more mids, which means a bit more body. When it comes to the FIFINE K688 microphone, again it seemed like it had a bit more lows and subs a bit less body. Different users and listeners may have different opinions, but to @audiosweetener, the FIFINE mic is a bit less mids. But because it has a little bit of a high presence boost, it seemed like it captured the pick and the string strumming rhythmically a bit better or a bit more aggressive which he thought could be really cool. To your ears, is it a cool recording microphone?