Samson Meteor Mic
Product rating for Samson Meteor Mic
Good microphone with annoying USB noise
This mic is a classic by now. It really has a very large, good condenser microphone built in, which is even decoupled with rubber.
When you have it in your hand, it feels really valuable. Everything is anodized metal. It doesn't just look classic, it feels it.
The built-in stand for the table is practical. If you want to mount the mic on a real mic stand, you can unscrew the feet. In general: everything is screwed and nothing is glued. You can therefore completely disassemble the microphone with a small screwdriver.
The microphone has typical USB noise, as is to be expected with USB mics. Among other things, a quite audible whistling at 1 kHz. This can be filtered out quite easily. The sound of the condenser microphone is really great.
The headphone jack also had noise on my laptop. Only I could hear it and it was not recorded. But still: you don't have a decent monitor if the noise bothers you. I don't know if this is mainly due to the fact that it's a USB microphone. I use the headphone jack anyway therefore not if I do not have to.
Unfortunately, you can see inside where savings have been made. The wire of the condenser microphone was not soldered to the PCB, but to a small leg of a SMD IC (see picture). If you don't understand this exactly: translated it means that you shouldn't drop the microphone on the floor too much. Externally, it will easily cope with this. On the inside, it is to be feared that this little leg will break off, which seems to happen.
You can find repair instructions on the internet. And because you can unscrew it, you can fix it. But still...
I could buy the microphone here for 69.90 CHF. For the price it is ok. But at the moment it costs almost 120 Stutz. At this price I would not recommend it. That is too expensive.
Pro
- Looks really great
- The built in table stand is really good.
- Really great feel (everything is metal)
- (Used to be) pretty cheap for what it is.
Contra
- You can hear noise on the micro USB (~1kHz)
- The headphone output (monitor) has even more noise.
- Inside a tinkering.
- Attention old product design.
Officially, only USB-C should be used. The industry has known for several years that USB micro and other creative connector solutions will not be permitted from January 2025. This means that the product design must already be very old and has not been adapted
The noise also has to do with the plug. They didn't know it back then.I would also recommend a Rode NT-USB Mini. I use it for my work and it has been doing its job reliably for a long time now. In my opinion, it's a much better microphone than this one and also much more solid and better constructed on the inside. Hardly any noise and very good quality, from which you can get a lot more. But it also costs twice as much.
