Audio Audio/Peripherals Microphone Reviews

Speedlink Volity Ready: USB Podcast Bundle review – Thick price for a thin voice

Since I am fair, I did not compare the Speedlink Volity Ready with the Yeti, which would have been a bit more expensive, but with the mentioned t.bone microphone, which can already be used for less than 50 euros, e.g. at Thomann. This is also one of the best online retailers in the European area and a long-established family business with its own sales premises. The t.bone is a classic large membrane, the Volity Ready unfortunately is not. I've rotated both microphones into the same position, so I'm basically talking about them sideways.

the t.bone SC 440 USB Microphone

The SC 440 is a real super kidney, so the disadvantage of my alignment is even greater than with the Speedlink, which sounded so cruel when discussing the advertised back (front) side that I turned it away to the hollow-sounding resonances a little bit. and to have to search for and collect the membrane of the Nubert subwoofer later on not a whopping 20 km further in the landscape. But let us start with the EUR 50 reference, with the stand being added to it. However, there are comparable table fixtures starting at approx. 30 euros, which would then amount to the already mentioned 79 euros – still more than 30 euros below the road price of the Speedlink set.

Sound-like, you can really leave it that way, especially since the output level is pleasantly high and the background noise is almost inaudible. So a USB solution can go as well and cheaply and it would be worth a recommendation in any case!

Speedlink Volity Ready

The alignment is so best in sound and the level difference between the back and the side meeting described as optimal was less than 1.5 dB. If you deduct the measurement inaccuracies, there is hardly anything left. Nevertheless, the whole thing still sounded like a hollow tube and is also abundantly flat. The dynamics of my voice are missing and the frequency progression is also abundantly distorted. And don't be alarmed, the level is really so low, no matter which direction you talk from.

First of all, the original, as I recorded it with a small level:

I have normalized all this again so that I can reach the comparable level of t.bone. What stands out in the ear are the extreme background noise and again exactly the deficits in the playback, which I had already mentioned above. Moreover, the exaggeration of the Sibilants is rather unnatural.

If you don't believe it: the recordings of the t.bone and the Speedlink were taken at the same place and at the same distance as well as the same angle between speaker and microphone! As a super kidney, the t.bone filters out all room noises and much of the diffuse reverb almost perfectly, while the Speedlink absorbs all ambient noise like a vacuum cleaner. The background noise mixes with the room noises into a sound carpet, on which one quickly gets cold feet.

Summary and conclusion

USB and microphone can work as a unit, as the t.bone SC 440 USB, which is somewhat misused today, proves this. You don't have to use special preamplifiers with phantom voltage, because with USB and Plug & Play it's just as well for these purposes. And that's where Speedlink's Volity Ready Set is pawning.  At 50 to 60 euros I would certainly have closed one or the other ear, but at 130 Euro EIA you simply cannot do that as a tester.

Apart from the manufacturing error with the swapped pages and the shameful correction on the homepage (which I only found by chance and where I would find a package leaflet very appropriate!) the entire product is also technically easy to call the price called not worth it. Based on an extremely cheap electret capsule that does not fit the input of the realtek ALC 4042 (where is the precursor to raise the level?) the tonal result is rather sobering.

The output level is well below the average of comparable USB microphones and can no longer be raised in Windows settings. The sound is somewhat bland and not free of resonances, while this slips with the kidney characteristic towards non-presence. Just as all side noises including room reverbare are recorded here, the whole can confidently be described as omni-directional. It is significant that a lateral speaker position achieves better results than frontal discussion.

For well under 100 Euros and without real demands on noise-free transmission behavior, you could certainly accept the Speedlink Volity Ready with a lot of goodwill. But in the price range where Speedlink is moving, this product has definitely lost nothing. You have to say that so hard and clearly if you want to be honest. Unfortunately, I don't have such an award, but there would certainly have been the thumb-down award here. For a long time.

The real alternative can be found here:

the t.bone SC 440 USB

 

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About the author

Igor Wallossek

Editor-in-chief and name-giver of igor'sLAB as the content successor of Tom's Hardware Germany, whose license was returned in June 2019 in order to better meet the qualitative demands of web content and challenges of new media such as YouTube with its own channel.

Computer nerd since 1983, audio freak since 1979 and pretty much open to anything with a plug or battery for over 50 years.

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