today is another five fine day because today take easy Gamers I'm going to do something that has been requested multiple times on my channel and something that I've been wanting to answer for myself as well for some time and what we're doing today is we're putting the fifine k688 against I can't reach it it's so far away against the five fine am8 and we're gonna try to answer the question of which one of these two is actually the better choice for me as well as for you better choice in terms of I guess appearance if
you're looking at just the basics the hardware build that sort of thing of how you want it to appear on camera and obviously of course the way it sounds right there's a lot of things to uh kind of break down here take easy Gamers so you might want to stick around and check out this battle we're gonna put it through all the tests that we usually do on this channel so without further Ado let's go ahead and jump into the battle right into round one let's go foreign [Music] before we get started with the audio
testing portion of it I want to talk about the hardware build itself right what probably makes one better than the other because they both have advantages in their own way so starting with the k688 we have a nice build here completely metal build all the way down to the capsule itself in the interior all metallic including the shock mount they both have touch capacitive mute buttons this also has mic gain and mic monitoring uh knobs on the bottom the am8 also has microphone gain control as well as headset monitoring on the top here they're both
USBC they both are XLR now the difference here is that you know the k680 has a shock mount the am8 does not so banging it you may get a little bit more noise from the AMA it also has RGB nice a lot of RGB options here on the am8 so um that's one advantage it has over the k688 another thing that might be a little off-putting is that the am8 is kind of large but not that much larger than the k688 the am8 is a little bit thicker and blocky so depending on how you want
it to look if you're going to have it set up on an arm like this looks nice All Right tickets and games so right now we are listening to the five fine k688 out of box I have volume maxed out on my PC gain maxed out on the mic everything is at 100 even OBS as that's what's doing the recording and this is the audio quality coming out of box three or four inches away from the mic rophone check one two what does it sound like texting Gamers to you I know it sounds good because
I've been listening to it for quite some time and this is the quality when you're talking up close and personal to the microphone about one inch away from the actual diaphragm and this is the quality talking about a foot and a half away from the microphone giving it a little bit of distance because Dynamic microphones would have that great of a pickup and this is the quality of that distance so you tell me what you think out there in the comments all right switching over to the AMA this is the quality of the am8 out
of box I had some filters running on it for some reason uh but this is the quality with no filtering no processing done everything at 100 the mic gain is at 100 on the am8 and everywhere else just like the k688 and this is what it sounds like talking up and close and personal with the am8 microphone check one two and this is what it sounds like talking back about a foot and a half again from the am8 what does it sound like to you out there in the world so my awesome Tech easy Gamers
I just did a playback over and over again to see which one was the better microphone here it was hard to tell at first but here are two things that I found that would that separates these now in terms of roll out of box audio quality in terms of higher dynamic range and capturing more nuances more depth to my vocal audio the am8 sounds better I said it yes the am8 is ever so slightly trumping the k688 in terms of dynamic range this captures really great lows and good highs and everything in between you can
hear my mouth moving from the inside with the AMA talking at a distance like this this is about I don't know a few inches away maybe six and the quality is good not only is a dynamic range better but there's also one more thing that again me is louder has ever so slightly a little bit more pickup than the k688 so I think the am8 out of box already is getting a little bit of a head start handling of the microphones may be a little different right for touching this cold uh shock mount here in
the body just kind of touching everything is the sound you get am8 handling so listening to the playback of the handling and touching of these microphones the am8 makes a little bit more with its plastic body and lack of shock mount and just overall uh Sensitivity I feel like it has uh has a lot more sensitivity over the k680 starting with the k688 I'm about six inches away let's do some plosives Peter Piper picked a pack of Pepsis popped them and poured them into a pitcher profusely what Peter Piper picked a pack of Pepsi's popped
them and poured them into a picture profusely let's switch over to the AMA Peter Piper picked a pack of Pepsis popped them and poured them into a pitcher profusely let's do that again Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers Peppers popped them and poured them into a pitcher profusely I was supposed to be Pepsis who's the winner here no one it's a draw I was trying different ways to make them sound different and the only way you can really get those plosives to cause Distortion for these mics is if you blast your peas and you're
up close but otherwise I think it's a draw you let me know in the comments but overall it's it's a draw there's no real negation from either or regarding plosive so yeah all right so moving on [Music] on the k688 now every time I have a Caesar salad I throw a little bit of salt and seasoning because this sexy and this is what I can't find the words with s super sexy salad Superman sucks what I'm switching over to the AMA Superman eats salad with Caesar's dressing because it tastes like someone snakes with Caesar salad
is deliciousness on top of Superman's super shorts alright so hisses I think for hissing the am8 has ever so slightly more hissing than the k688 so I think for me the clear winner with guarding hissing is the k688 and it probably has something to do with the am8's bigger pickup than it has over the k688 you know you get that higher dynamic range those highs and at the cost of getting just ever so slightly more hissing than the k688 so all right the k688 wins so right now I'm gonna test with this Wireless Logitech keyboard
since the k688 is on an arm connected to this actual table banging on it naturally is going to create a vibration so to make it fair I'm going to lift this keyboard up as if they were both on stands standing on the floor so let's do the five fine k688 switching over to the am8 as I kind of suspected they both kind of sound the same with the mics being so close to the keyboard it's going to pick up your keyboard stroke so kind of no real winner there but if I go ahead and do
some noise cancellation on these microphones we're gonna start to see something different happen here so let's apply noise cancellation to both let's do it testing one two now you have noise cancellation on the k688 and you're not going to pick up any of the ambient noise that I have going on in this room particularly my computer fans and this is the audio quality with some noise cancellation what do the Deep nuances of my vocals sound like is it picking up a high dynamic range check one two three four five six let's switch over to the
AMA and this is the am8 with a little bit of noise suppression equal amount as the k688 what does the vocal audio sound like is it picking up more dynamic range than the actual k688 microphone check one two three four five six seven eight nine ten hard Choice seconds and Gamers but I have to again give the slight Edge to the am8 higher dynamic range a little bit more pickup picking up ever so slightly a little bit more I guess the nuances every little articulation in my mouth and my voice just ever so slightly a
little bit more than the k688 I'm actually going to use the mono am 100 the Au am100 that is and specifically I wanted to use this device because it houses two XLR connections there on the back starting with the am8 with some noise cancellation going and this is the audio sounding out of box connected to an XLR port on an audio mixer what does this quality sound like switching to the k688 same deal we are connected via XLR to our audio mixer and with some T noise going via the mixer itself what does this audio
quality sound like techies and Gamers I think this sounds fantastic as well alright so here I'm going to give you a nice blind test I'm just going to switch between the two and you tell me which is which now this is one of the microphones I have not stated which one it is and switching the faders I have switched to the other microphone switching back to the other one one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen can I count to a million so techies Gamers what I did
was I played the video back over and over again listening to levels one piece at a time so I listened to the bass First Mid tones and then High separately so when it comes to Bass the am8 has a better range better bass levels so to speak at least with a deep voice a deeper voice like I have sounds good on the AMA the k688 sounds okay too I feel like there's like it's not as much bass for one and it's also um I don't know it's not as rich right I don't feel the reverberation
the way I feel on the AMA so a little bit of lackluster kind of now that I'm really looking at it compared to the am8 but it's still relatively it's still good now the differences that were really major I noticed were in the mids and highs yes going over XLR the mids on the k688 were also ever so slightly muffled over the AMA it even sounded a little bit more I don't know candy like you're in a can not necessarily the tin piece of it but just the kind of can sound it was more like
a closer space than this mid-tone range on the AMA being a more open space so I don't know also again capturing the reverberation of my vocal cords I can kind of like hear it shaking on the AMA over the k688 and the highs are pretty high on the am8 so much that to get a lot of hissing so you're gonna pick up more S's and hisses with the am8 the k688 has the advantage here where it kind of eliminates that hissing sound so a thing that I don't have to actually do in post-production which is
fantastic so those High ends are good enough on the k688 where it's not hissing the high ends on this sounds makes my voice sound richer at the cost of getting more hissing so I don't know depending what you like what you don't like me personally I kind of like that higher dynamic range that was getting on the Amy pretty good so I think the amate again gets the slight edge here so Tech is the gamers there you have it k688 versus the am8 now I think overall raw audio quality out of box it's minor tweaking
via USBC via XLR the am8 wins The Edge over the k688 in a number of ways in terms of audio quality mid space is high it has a bigger pickup it just kind of just sounds really great out of box overall the k688 also sounds great just a tad here behind in terms of the mid tones a little bit of muffling I kind of feel happening there a little bit of plastic bucket sounding talking into kind of sound there but it's not bad it's you probably didn't even notice that or still don't notice that right
now in this recording but it's kind of something I'm kind of sensitive to after hearing so many different microphones you kind of just start hearing these little miniature minute nuances of microphones and for all intents and purposes I feel like the am8 is like it's listening to me more it's picking more of what my voice has to offer and it may pick up more of what instruments as well has to offer if you're going via a mixer of any sort the funny thing is that the k688 costs ever so slightly more than the am8 so
maybe it's because of its physical build it's 100 metal it has basically all the features the am8 has minus the RGB but it also has a shock mount here so you don't get that with the AMA so you get a lot of handling noise on it you get a lot of reverberation it's made of plastic a little bit more boxy I don't know if you like that appearance I think for me the visual appearance of this one kind of looks better than that ones that's my take on it maybe I'll jump back and forth between
the AMA and the k688 in certain instances I don't know we'll see you tell me Tech is a game is which one of these sounded better to you the am8 or the k688 and what do you think you think I should go back to the AME I don't know that's my spelling if you like what you see here at Texas Gamers on a daily basis you'll come back to here and you just like my videos you might as well subscribe if it's your 40 000th time here stalking my channel and you haven't yet subscribed and
if you're interested in seeing a competitor to both of these microphones by Mono go ahead and check out this link right here I have actually got my hands on the PD 200x and with that I'll see you in my next video later
