MXL 990 Condenser Microphone with Shock Mount
The MXL 990 Condenser Microphone with Shock Mount has a silky, sweet high end while retaining tight, solid low and midrange reproduction. The 3/4″ gold-sputtered diaphragm creates a professional sound suited for digital and analog recording. Attractive vintage body style with champagne finish. 30Hz-20kHz frequency response. 130dB maximum SPL. Includes custom shock mount, mic stand adapter, and case. Requires phantom power.
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Star MXL yikes!
I was really in the market for a less expensive condenser mic. A friend had one of these at his studio and I tried it out. Iwas really terrible. Sounded awlful. Very harsh. Acoustic guitar sound hollow and harsh – not good. Vocals were really unflattering. Tried a couple of different mic pres. Still bad news. You really hardly get what you pay for with this stuff.
1 Star Garbage!
These Mics are Garbage! I know we all don’t have alot of $$$ floating around right now but if you seriously want to get good budget priced mics for vocals ect….recording,… these are not it! The best these are for is to throw them and the head of the salesperson who tries to tell you these are a good buy!
-j-
5 Stars awsome
got this for my boyriend for xmas we have an extra room that was he uses as a studio hobby room for fun. was a sound enginer for 7 years for a band. and its great he plays with it everyday.thank you:)
5 Stars Best mic!
Very good mic for live recording…don’t let the price fool this is a really good mic.To hear a sound clip recorded by this mic go to [...] you will be impressed with the quality sound from this mic. Just buy it already!
3 Stars Too muddy. For $50 more you can get so much better.
I had this mic for one day, which was enough time for me to put it through its paces for my use: voice-over work. Unfortunately, this mic didn’t have the presence I was looking for in a condenser microphone, and the mids were far too muddy. I couldn’t EQ them out with my basic 4-channel audio board + phantom power. Garbage in = garbage out. I returned the mic to the store about 24 hours later.
Someone said in another review that you’ll quickly grow out of the MXL 990 mic once you realize that it sounds like a cheap Chinese condenser mic. I totally agree with that.
Also, a condenser is really not a good choice for a podcast mic. They pick up far too much noise — they are really meant to be used in studio applications with heavily treated rooms that have no background noise. If you use it in a normal room, you’ll hear every tiny little sound along with your speech. I suggest you look at a decent Dynamic microphone. As far as super inexpensive, I’ve had good luck with the Audio Technica AT818II mic in Asia. In the US, it’s actually more expensive, and is called the Audio Technica “Professional Unidirectional Microphone.” You can find them here on Amazon for a song. I’ve been happy with the sound for my podcasts, and as a dynamic, they handle background noises much better.
A great (but a little expensive) mic for podcasts, probably the best, is the Shure SM7. You can read about that all over the web.
