What is EPOS? - B20 Microphone
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
1,739 words · ~8 min read
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- The first question we need to answer is who exactly makes the B20 streaming microphone?
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EPOS sponsored this video. And in a nutshell, they're the result of a previous
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joint venture between Demant and Sennheiser that is now its own independent brand.
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With that out of the way, let's take a look at this thing.
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Definitely A-plus for product protection.
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That is some fine, fine packaging.
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Here, let's see if it's any good. No, I won't, sorry.
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I'll be good, I'll be good. I'll be good today, David. All right, let's pull out our microphone.
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Oh, interesting, so it's got like kind of a side ARM.
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The ARM rotates 360 degrees and is 3/8ths threaded.
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So you should be able to mount this to pretty much any audio equipment that you would want to.
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Okay, if you don't want to mount it to an ARM, it does come with a base.
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And then presumably, there's also, oh yes, oh, okay.
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Yep, that makes sense, yeah. Oh wow, all machined aluminum.
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Super, super rigid. And what else have we got included?
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My bad.
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Like I'm just trying to show you the thing. A quarter inch threaded bolt.
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And then, we've also got a USB type A to type C. That's nice, everything should be USB type C at this.
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It is a little bit more complex and a little bit more costly
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to implement into the product. But it's got clear benefits,
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even if you're not taking advantage of all the features like, you know, super high power delivery
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or whatever that obviously a microphone wouldn't need. And one of the big ones is just look at that.
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You plug it in any way you want. And perhaps more importantly, it's really, really durable.
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We actually did a test where we unplugged and re-plugged it 10,000 times.
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And USB-C held up to the challenge, whereas micro B did not.
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Wow, I never thought a microphone could be so dangerous.
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This is the safety guide. I've never actually read one of these.
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Always include this safety guide when passing the product onto third parties.
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Ah, no way. I was trying to assemble it wrong and they won't let me.
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I've wanted to put it like this just to show that, like, oh yeah, make sure you don't assemble it wrong.
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But the one end of the oval is flattened out.
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So you can't put it in the wrong way. More products should be designed to be lined as proof.
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For all the linusesses in your life. Don't be a Linus.
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Do you know Linus is slang for penis? - [DAVID] What? - Let's take a closer look at the microphone.
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So it appears as though the intention is for it to be addressed.
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I'm going to guess the side with the mute button
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and the volume knob and not the side with gain
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and pickup pattern. It's got four pickup patterns. So you've got stereo, omni-directional,
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cardioid, and bi-directional. So these are useful for all kinds of different applications.
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Cardioid, you want to use if you're getting real up close and personal with your microphone
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if you like that kind of sound. You want to block out ambient sound.
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Omni-directional would be if you just want to put it in the middle of a conference table
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and be able to hear everyone, everything that's going on. Bi-directional would be great for conducting an interview
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with someone across the table from you. So you don't pick up some of that nearby side noise
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but it picks up both of you really well. And then stereo would be if you want to make
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a stereo recording, I guess. It doesn't come up very often
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in like a podcasting context. But, hey, you know, I'm sure someone has use for it
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for, like, art. On the bottom, the last thing that I didn't show you guys yet
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is that there's a headphone Jack. So it's pretty typical for these USB microphones
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to have both an audio input
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and an audio output that goes through them. Which allows you to monitor yourself with zero latency.
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Because if you try to monitor yourself through the computer, there can be a bit of a delay.
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So you're talking. And then you hear yourself a little bit later. And it can be extremely distracting.
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I actually hosted Rancho like that for years.
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All right, that's a little loud. Okay, we're going to have to, whoa, we're going to have to lose some gain here.
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I'm a bit of a hot boy, like from a,
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like a audio, microphone perspective. I tend to talk really loud.
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Man, you know what, I kind of want to, I kind of want to up a little bit. I usually prefer to have my mic a little closer.
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Now while I get this dialed in, EPOS doesn't actually say whether this is a condenser type or a dynamic microphone.
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But most USB microphones are condensers. And particularly, the ones with adjustable pickup patterns
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are generally condensers. And the main benefit of a condenser is that you get
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better frequency response and sort of generally more accurate inputs.
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But it does come at the cost of more background noise.
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Whereas with the dynamic microphone, you got to get real in close and personal with it
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otherwise you're going to be hearing everything from your AC to your neighbor backing out of their driveway
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and everything else in between. Now of course, if you did want to hear some of that stuff, let's have a listen to what one of the other pickup patterns
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sounds like on this. Here's omni-directional, hey, David, how's it going?
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- [DAVID] Great. - Yup, I can hear you. And then if I flip back to cardioid.
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Whup, that's the wrong dial. There we go, ah, David, how's it going?
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- [DAVID] It's going good. - Yeah, it doesn't matter what your name is. Little bit of handling noise.
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Generally speaking, you shouldn't be rubbing your microphone while you're using it anyway.
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That's not, that's not recommended. In terms of table bumps, bumping my elbows a little bit.
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There's a little bit, but not bad. If I flip back to omni-directional, you guys are going to hear.
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Yeah, that's quite a lot worse. I mean, these are the main concerns when you're using something for gaming, right?
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Because you're actually, you're moving around. You're sliding your hands around.
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So, you know, you've got keys going kind of clickety clack.
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This is another example of why in a gaming or podcasting setting, whether you're taking notes
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or just playing a video game, you don't really want omni-directional.
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An omni-directional pickup battle is not really the best. Hello, hello.
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Yep, it's muted, turns red. Subtle, but easy to see.
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There we go, that's back. Based on my experience with it so far,
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I would definitely recommend, like, with many microphones,
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the use of a pop filter. You can definitely pick up some breathing and some plosives.
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But it's far from the worst I've ever encountered by a long shot. And oh, of course, they've got their software,
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the EPOS gaming suite microphone. Oh, this is really cool.
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We can actually see in real time, the profile of my voice.
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It's not that high pitch. I'm really heavy in the kind of 250 to 500 Hertz range.
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You know, that's a higher voice compared to, you know,
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a really bassy man voice. Hi, I'm Batman.
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Yeah, that goes a little lower. Oh, interesting, I had actually noticed
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it didn't have a high pass filter or a low cut built into the microphone.
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It looks like you can configure that in software though. Ooh, voice enhancer, should we try the warm voice?
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- [DAVID] Yeah. - Hello.
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Do a quick test recording. Let's see what I sound like in the warm voice enhancer preset.
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Do a quick test recording. Let's see what I sound like in the warm voice enhancer preset.
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Probably a little too warm, I think, for my tastes.
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Now, we are listening to the clear voice enhancer preset.
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Now, we are listening to the clear voice enhancer. I think we're going to stick with off for voice enhancer.
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Of course, you can create a custom one if you want. Just be like, look, there's not enough bass in my voice.
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I need to crank the bass. This is the ultimate bass version of my voice.
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You know, Nicki Minaj, this is super bass, super,
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I'm going fishing super bass. This is the ultimate bass version of my voice.
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You know, Nicki Minaj, this is. Yeah, that's intolerable.
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Moving on to noise cancellation. This sounds like a feature where it uses the microphone
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to, you know, get rid of annoying ambient sounds
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in the headphones. But that's not what it does. It actually is supposed to just clean up
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your digital recording. So we're going to start at zero and record for a little bit here.
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Then we're going to step it up to 50, where theoretically, we should get a bit of a cleaner sound
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to the recording. But as we move all the way up to a 100, it's also possible that we'll get
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a bit of a reduction in naturalness. It's not the sort of thing I would typically turn on.
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But it's up to you. A thing I would typically turn on but.
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Yep, somehow I managed to describe exactly what was happening without even having listened to it yet.
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50 is all right, a 100 is definitely too much for me. So that's it, that's the EPOS B20.
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It comes in at $199 US. And you guys can check it out at the link down below.
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Thanks again to EPOS for sponsoring this video and thanks to you guys for watching ShortCircuit.
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Subcribe.