Finally!
Geez this took a long time to get here…huh! If you remember I posted a request for a favor from any of my readers in the New York area to help me with my purchase of a new microphone Click here to read that post. That was back in March 27th of this year.
None but one answered and I greatly thank him for his offer and support. Its June 9th and I finally got my new Microphone. Think about that… it took 3 months for me to get my hands on an item from amazon.com (sigh). Anyway I can’t blame the lack of a shipping address on this… we ended up diverting the delivery address to Washington DC but my friend who was going to visiting DC from Egypt was not allowed to travel to the states because of the outbreak of Swine Flu in the states… so he was stuck in Egypt missing his conference and I was stuck waiting for someone to come to Egypt from DC.
The Mic finally arrived and its an Audio Technica USB AT2020 what I’m going to be doing today is something called an unboxing. Its a trick I picked up from all the gadget and gizmo blogs that I frequent. It shows you a documented step by step presentation of what you should find when you open a new piece of equipment’s packaging.
In this case its the Audio Technica AT2020 USB microphone… here we go:
The Audio Technica Box:
and the side view:
The box is approx 9.8 x 9.5 x 2.8 inches and according to Amazon.com weighs about 6.8 pounds. I paid $100 and it was shipped for free… so obviously not the most expensive microphone out there (practically entry level) but I am not reviewing the microphone yet… just doing the unboxing.
The box opens from the front panel not the side:
The Contents:
The box contained a number a few pieces of printed matter (manual, registration card, handling instructions) and a faux leather carrying pouch..
The usage manual isn’t that big … but comes in several languages (english, french, german, italian, spanish and maybe a few others):
Inside the Faux leather pouch (which has the Audio Technica logo embossed on it) you will find the 9 foot USB connection that goes into the microphone as well as the two different pieces of the stand… the microphone mount and the tripod. The pouch looks sturdy but is not made to protect your microphone from falls or major bumps… just an all purpose carrying bag:
This is the microphone before I took it out of the box:
I’ve got pretty big hands… and I have to say this mic is pretty wide… a slightly bigger diameter than my MXL Studio 1 microphone… I know I know I should have taken a shot with both of them next to each other… what can I say… I’m lazy:
The Assembly:
The assembly of the microphone is pretty straight forward… you just have the stand attachment and then the small tripod… honestly its quite simple:
and then the tripod:
And thats it… the microphone with the stand and everything look like this (without my pesky hand hiding everything:
The only issue I had is that when you hook up the usb cable at the bottom it kind of hits the surface of the desk… but since I record using a microphone stand I wont be using that small tripod … it is adjustable… but thats about it.. the microphone is sturdy and solid as a dutch oven! the casing is made of galvanized steel (feels little like Teflon) and overall the microphone only has 3 labels on it … The logo.. the usb sign and a sign on the back saying … this is the back of the microphone.
I plugged it into my home computer running vista and it was immediatly recognized without need of any drivers and I was able to record in audacity without doing any tinkering at all!
I can’t tell you how much I loved the quality of the sound… The whole reason I bought this mic is because its less sensative than my MXL usb microphone… I live in a busy part of cairo and I was getting kinda sick of repeating takes cause some idiot honked his horn a few too many times outside my apt.. the Audio Technica has an excellent range of frequancy but is not so sensative that I have to repeat takes.
Once you plug the microphone in a blue LED light tells you that it is powered and ready to record.
That is pretty much it for now… I will try to record a sample with it in the next couple of days along with a sample recording from my other usb microphone and then post those for you to compare and scrutinize.
If you enjoyed this unboxing please leave a comment!
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Taji
Mabrouk! Could you give us an unedited voice audio sample with the new mic? Please include a few seconds of no speech after.
Hmm almost as good as the Wheel of Fortune girl.
Maybe hand modeling is next for the Taj man.
Just kidding, great ideas from a new item.
Thank you, Taji! I just spoke with the owner of a recording studio yesterday and this was one of the microphones he recommended for me. I will be posting his list of recommendations for Home Recording Equipment’s page. We can’t wait to hear your sample.
Thank you, your information was extremely helpful. I am going to be purchasing this mic, it is definately affordable and it has had great reviews. Thank you again. I am shouting out from Brooklyn NY…
Are you able to hear yourself through the speakers/headphones? I have it installed in vista 64 and can’t hear what I’m recording. It those record though.