since the first time I ever made a video about a microphone incidentally it was
actually the predecessor to this one the SL300 we've received a lot of requests
to cover this category better and at first this was confusing to me why when
I was a kid building a hot rod PC the microphone was the last thing on
anyone's mind but of course that was before services like twitch TV existed
and for that matter before YouTube existed and suddenly you know everyone
and their dog all of a sudden figures they need a broadcast grade microphone
to ramble into while playing video games but of course that shift has occurred
now and my recent appearance on Pimp My setup which you can check out here by
the way really drove home for me how many of these just perfectly normal
people have high-end microphones as part of their Rigs and why these reviews are
so popular so without further Ado here's
our video of the SL600 condenser microphone from editor keys
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my face to learn more right out of the
box the SL600 feels more professional grade than consumer grade and I actually
mean that in kind of a negative sense it includes a hard case for travel you know
because everyone needs one of those and a reasonably comp competent if not
exceptional shock mount okay that one's actually pretty handy and guys like blue
and Razer charge extra for that on similarly priced consumer SL prosumer
oriented mics like the yeti Pro and siren and they had the sense to include
a nice long USB cable but it doesn't include any kind of stand for the darn
thing this is what professional gears always like you know here's the hard
stuff to find but we'll just assume you already have like a thing to actually
put it on your freaking desk or something more elaborate like a boom ARM
that clamps to it to hold the thing up and and I didn't I mean it's not a huge
deal an editor's keys does have reasonably priced stand accessories if
you don't have your own already but the bad news is that could put the SL600
beyond the uh you know oh it's only a little bit more than the siren threshold
where folks are likely to upsell themselves a few bucks for something
that is significantly better if they don't already own one but is it
significantly better patience we'll get to that first the physical tour the
SL600 has a striking and to me very appealing but I'm kind of partial to
this color scheme appearance with a black metal body and orange mesh over
the single large 34mm diaphragm yes
folks this is not a jack of all trades microphone so if you were expecting to
get XLR output and a veritable smorgus
Board of pickup patterns that are pretty
unlikely to be used outside of very specific situations you'll be sorely
disappointed the ETL 600 is designed to be used one way and one way only speak
into the microphone below the business end is a low cut switch to get rid of
the boominess that can sometimes occur when someone other than me sits too
close a minus 10 D pre- attenuation switch for loud sources a gain knob and
oo what's this the big upgrade that got my attention on this model compared to
the SL300 which I use just about every other day a headphone knob to go along
with the zero latency audio monitoring Port just under the dial very nice just
like the other microphones that I'm comparing against it can output only
your computer system sound from that port or it can mix in the microphone's
input with zero delay making it perfect for podcasting or does it now we'll get
into the actual audio quality I'll be putting it up against the two similarly
priced products that I have in my testing stable right now in my usual
scenarios let's start with some test audio from the SL600 in my ideal
scenario where it's positioned directly in front of me between my keyboard and
face with a dual layer pop filter in this position the SL600 performs very
well ambient noise pickup is among the lowest I've encountered so in spite of
the four other computers in the room and the nearby server room and even with the
keyboard rocking out in the background behind it which I'll start mashing away
on now voice quality is very very good I
mean if you're a game streamer this can be the difference between an acceptable
microphone and one that's totally usess useless which was my biggest complaint
about the Razer siren from my Yeti blackout and pro review the sound of my
voice through the siren was a strong point for it but its high noise floor
and inability to shut out background noise like typing like
this hurts it in a big way when it's commanding a big league price similar to
the other microphones we're looking at today the next of which is the Blue Yeti
Pro which holds up really well against the competition its noise floor is
similar and its ambient noise pickup both the H of the computer systems
and typing away behind the mic is noticeably better than the SL600 but
both Brandon and I in side-by-side listening tests pegged the SL600 as the
more natural sounding of the two and therefore probably my pick for vocal
recording with the yeti Pro having a more radio likee sound quality at this
distance something that many broadcasters will prefer which got me
thinking how would the SL600 perform in a more up close and personal recording
environment the answer is well you're listening to it you get a much warmer
sound with more bass but without it becoming overwhelming that same experiment on the
yeti Pro didn't give me nearly as dramatic a difference in the recording
though so for skilled broadcasters who want to leverage the different ways that
they'll sound as they move closer or further from the microphone the SL600 is
a clear winner for me which leads us to our next test scenario starting with the
SL600 putting the mic off to the side next to the monitor where it's forced to
operate from a distance of about half a meter from The Sound Source this is
definitely not the SL 600's wheelhouse it sounds noticeably more distant than
the Blue Yeti Pro which I'll switch to now for easy side-by-side comparison
although as usual I have standardized test recordings which you can find in my
SoundCloud linked below the video but I'd still take it over the Razer siren
which I'm switching to now due to the siren's noise floor and background noise
pickup which continue to be the bane of its existence
is this thing on all right so let's talk final thoughts then once you get to a
certain point it looks like uh for USB desktop microphones that's about $200 it
becomes more about tradeoffs than one product being clearly significantly
better than another the SL600 would be my choice for Pure vocals or
broadcasting thanks to its voice recording prowess and the lifetime
warranty is a definite plus but the yeti Pro XLR output hardware mute button it's
a big one and ambient noise reduction make it a clear choice for game
streamers at the same price once you factor in that you're going to need a
stand for this bad boy speaking of
streaming and game streamers xsplit
broadcaster Powers countless live streams and recordings around the world
including the WAN Show that you see here online as Tech tips every Friday their
new V2 version of the software has powerful new tools it's built to meet
the needs of today's content creators and all these bullet points that I'm
supposed to say but the basic point of all of this is that xplit is Affordable
and just plain works it's stable their
game detection is outstanding so it can actually pick up on games Luke's had it
running with games that aren't even released yet and it's just like Boop yep
we know about this we'll let you go ahead and cast that which helps the
games not be as demanding on your system when you're streaming them as well as
just generally being easier to use you can set up a variety of scenes you got
fade effects as you switch between them and it's got all kinds of stuff that
really just generally makes the life of me personally and I'm assuming anyone
else who tries it a little bit easier the best part is that if you're willing
to give up on a couple of the more premium features like lots of extra
scenes it is completely free there's also some stuff I should mention about
xplit gamecaster so that's for gamers to
easily stream and record their great gaming moments at the click of a button
it's gotten easy to use overlay so you can go ahead and bring that up and start
you know streaming or recording your gameplay without actually all tabbing
completely out of the game and I think
those are pretty redundant I've got another point that says it's great for
creating live streams and recordings yeah yeah it would be I mean anything
split media makes pretty much is for that so visit xplit dcom Linus to start
streaming and recording in HD today guys
thanks for watching like this video if you liked it dislike it if you thought it sucked leave a comment if your
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