are you a budget-minded gamer I like me are you a person looking to upgrade your stream today without spending a bunch of money and audio is what you're focusing on well today might be the perfect video for you because Fife finds sent over the am8 microphone I believe this has the same capsule as the k688 which I replaced my Shure sm7b on my stream with that microphone so can this 50 mic replace a 400 mic let's find out after a word from our sponsors this video is brought to you by lightstream live stream is a
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sponsoring this video the am8 if you don't know about what I do I've covered a bunch of budget microphones especially targeting them towards replacing or getting a sound similar to the sm7b and things like the k688 which I absolutely love from fifine the fiducci sl40 and yes the fiducci are you trying to romance me and then the mayonno mic which is the most recent review on my channel it's about 150 dollars not necessarily a budget but it comes with an app and is absolutely astonishing so so that being said just know that we have looked
at several microphones I feel like I have a space to be able to tell you whether or not this mic is going to live up to the height but let's unbox it let's plug it in let's do some sound samples we'll do a couple of these mics that are around the same price range we'll put all that on the screen so you can see it and then compare the sound of the am8 from five fine which I haven't listened to yet this is raw to all of those maybe throw in the sm7b just so you
have it so let's get into the unboxing [Music] thank you [Music] so here's the microphone right here for you to understand kind of the way it looks looking at the back side has to touch mute then on the other side buttons and then for size comparison here is the Shure sm7b and then there is that microphone so you can kind of see how big that mic is it's nowhere near as long that's what she said that's maybe like four fifths three quarters the length of assurance sm7b but most people know this mic that's why I
always compare to it and then looking at the capsule it's going to pull that off it's all the way at the top that's absolutely crazy let me see if I can actually get it can you see that actually Focus that capsule is all the way at the very top that means that if you put your mouth right on the end of this you're probably going to get some popping and weird stuff so that's what she said we'll see how it goes so why don't we plug it in let's start off with XLR and then we'll
switch to USB and then that we'll be able to see the RGB at that time but let's start with XLR let's do some sound comparisons of the fifine am8 so if you might on XLR I forgot something really important what else came in the box there is a USB a to USBC cable fairly good length honestly nothing special here there's not like a USBC to a adapter in here so you get what you get now let's do some sound comparisons this is the fifine am8 and I'm about three inches away from the end of the
capsule which is the end of the microphone in this case and this microphone installed really easily onto the stand you don't get RGB with the XLR setup unless you have it plugged into USB but for now we're just going to run it like this and just a side note if you're just curious phantom power will not turn on the rgbs yes I tested it I'm sure somebody's going to ask in the comments let's go into another budget microphone around this price range and let you hear what it sounds like on XLR this is the fifine
k688 and I'm speaking about the same distance about three inches from the end of the microphone and because this capsule is also at the very edge of the Grille basically three inches away from the diaphragm and the k688 should be the direct comparison to the am8 because I believe it has the exact same capsule just a different look with very similar features just no RGB but looks a lot more like the sm7b let's go on to another microphone for this next comparison this next microphone is the fiducci sl40 coming in around 70 dollars I think
it comes in 100 on Amazon most of the time on sale this microphone phone has very similar features USBC XLR microphone volume headphone volume Etc on the microphone but just a different perspective this reminds me a little bit more of the mv7 in look uh kind of like the mayono in the software this one has the look of that mv7 and once again this is the fiducci so40 for XLR sound test and just for good measure this is the Shure sm7b the 400 microphone that a lot of people strive to have but these microphones perform
just as good most of the time we're going to see what the am8 sounds like in a moment I haven't listened to it you have tell me jump down in the comments what were your thoughts thinking of the am8 compared to these microphones does it sound good close to the k688 do you think it could compare replace Etc what are your thoughts 400 microphone 50 to 100 microphone with more features by the way this is the fifine am8 now we are at 100 gain and I'm talking into the microphone about the same distance for you
to be able to hear and what you will notice is now we have RGB on the microphone right now it's actually rolling through a rainbow effect but you can actually touch right here on the back side of the microphone there's an RGB button and you can cycle in between them there's like red orange yellow greens blues violets indigos there's a white and then that RGB kind of rolling piece I feel like it's tasteful let me turn to the side I feel like that's really tasteful I don't think it's over the top um it's not too
much and then you do get as you can see on the top there's a green light right here if you touch it obviously it's going to mute by the way I'll have my editor switch over to the actual headset mic that I'm wearing the lavalier which as you can see it does mute now we're going to switch back and now we're live you can see that we're actually unmuted now but you can actually change that color pretty easily it's again all capacitive touch and I'm really liking the RGB flow you don't get much control of
it you just get the presets that you have here it is really easy to kind of miss it and one thing that I don't like if I find is that as I touch this I bet you there's a bunch of handling noise I haven't listened to the sound samples yet let me know if there's sound like handling of the microphone as I touch all of this anyway everything looks like it's performing well I do feel like the microphone needs some extra gain and maybe I can give that in Windows but right now it actually looks
pretty awesome so let me know what your thoughts are for this just for comparison we'll throw the fiduci for USB on as well as the k688 so you can have a comparison so here's the fiducci sl40 on USB no flashing lights or anything but you still get a gain knob a mute button that's not capacitive you actually click it and you do get some handling noise with that and then a volume up or down button either for the headset or for the actual microphone so again this is the fiducci so40 on USBC for you to
have a comparison to not only the XLR but to the USBC of the am8 and this is the fifine k688 once again on USB C this one has a mute button it also has the volume and gain knobs of the headset as well as the microphone on the bottom that the am8 has as well as most of these microphones that have similar features so this again is the k688 this should sound almost identical to the am8 I don't know I'm about to hear and then give you my thoughts and opinions Etc also I just realized
while I have this mic out my like light over here keeps turning on and off so sorry for the continuity problem uh yeah it'll be what it is no purple light come over here on the side let's get back I'm going to go ahead and tell you and listen to all of the stuff and let you know what my thoughts are of the fifine am8 and how well it Stacks up to the competitors so Spartacus Titus this guy um it's actually my brother but he was part of the original k688 so I told him to
come in here at the video where we actually talked about this I want him to do it because he had an opinion about this and I want to see what he thinks of the am8 and what those thoughts are so what what did you think of the k68 originally so when it came to the k688 um I was very blown away at the fact that you could have a phone or have a microphone that was half the price fraction of the price you had paid for that Shore sm7b I'd heard nothing all about it I
know you had told me all about the shore sm7p was oh it was the king of the crop it was it was the King Arthur of all microphones and and I've never been a microphone guy um but listening to it I mean that really blew me away at the Quality that you got for the price I mean it for somebody that's just trying to get into streaming but doesn't want to spend four hundred dollars yeah yeah I mean 400 I mean they can get you a graphics card in this economy right now I mean but
you can get this one right here for 70 bucks and it's still going to give you the same exact quality well with that being said I ranked it actually above the sm7b in my original mic comparison but I actually haven't listened to the am8 I have a headset and I want you to hear the sound and then after you hear both then I want you to react to it and kind of hear what it sounds like okay so I'm gonna scrub through some sounds we're going to leave all this in there just in case you
get some reactions but I want you to listen to it spoiler alert if it sounds good I'm probably taking it with me back in my room here we go hopefully I don't break something trying to play these is it the same they're very similar although with this one I don't know if it's been eq'd like the the k688 has yeah uh this one tends to have a background similar to almost talking into a theater Hall kind of there's there's a Reverb in there there's not so much as a Reverb as much as a phantom space
that sounds like it's just outs it's very wide it's like there's still just a little bit white noise or ambient noise yeah that kind of leaks in but the k688 feels more compressed if and it doesn't move past that and you may hear that okay so with this one it has a little more Bass to it you catch a lot more of the the bass tone of your voice this one I could actually hear the mic stand being pulled and you could kind of hear it it was reverbing through the metal into into it and
you can kind of hear the and you'll kind of hear it this one it kind of had that this did not so the short sm7b your high ends sound very they sound like you're talking into a tin can almost at the top yet the k688 very dialed in I'm not getting that that vibe that you get from the top end of your Shore sm7b and with this one but it's very small but it is slightly there overall I would still go with the k688 followed by the AXA am8 you most certainly have beat out the
400 round king of microphones I would rather spend my money for the am8 or the k688 I'm actually using the amplerocket right now I've I love these microphones I think we saw like USB to listen to but you have no audio experience I mean nothing at all like you played instrument in school but that's all you really have and I I did some mild tuning on car audio but I mean it was nothing that that's not a microphone all right let's listen to USB really quick all right USB all right so outside of the hearing
the dragging there was some mild dragging with this while you were trying to show the the RGB but audio wise this was very close to this one I can you can tell that this one's kind of been you know kind of messed with uh but straight out of the box like you can tell this right here could easily reach that um this picks up a lot more this seems to have a little bit more range to it but there again this one did too when we first unboxed it it had a lot to go on
this one is kind of middle of the road the for USB it was the so40 yes they sell 40. which was also another thing I used on the 24 hour stream um I personally like that mic I just felt like I had to be right next to it like I was having a battle buddy while I was talking and that was one thing I noticed when I was doing the recording this was maxed out 100 on Windows 100 in the recording on the microphone too and I was on it and it still was quiet the
k688 it's still a beautiful microphone I I 100 is a man that doesn't know anything about audio just your regular consumer buyer go with either the k688 or the am I would 100 guarantee you you will not be let down with that look let me listen to it real quick let me see what happens I definitely want him to add in there when I do the chef's kiss I want him to do the wow that's my only request I want to say number one you're right something weird Okay so the AMA so the AMA on
XLR has this like it's not Reverb it just feels like there's an echo like a presence in the background like it's almost bouncing around in the back of the capsule kind of like what the sm7b is designed to do where you've got that long snout in the back to kind of allow that sound to bounce around and and do its thing but it feels like they tried to do it here because it's plastic it just added a kind of a toy sound I'm not saying that it sounds like a toy but if you listen really
close put some earbuds in and listen it has it has like a a wide presence in the back not that it's bad it's just it's different it's not it's definitely it's a choice and I think for certain streamers this could be a really good option but compared to the k688 it sounds almost identical I do think it's the exact same capsule I do think it's the exact same castle but I do think that I just I think maybe it's because it's a plastic body or the way it's secured in here I think it adds a
little bit of just extra it almost kind of feels like empty base like there's something that it's trying to fill but it's not quite there or you don't have enough auditory vocalization to cover that area that's a big word so I think the I think my problem with it is I'm I'm used to listening to the k688 and so compared to the k688 it has the same capsule you're getting this almost the same exact EQ it sounds very similar but like the sl40 too much bass and on XLR you got plenty of control good gain
good volume just too much bass and then the sm7b I don't know if it's just my voice but I just don't like my voice on this microphone and even in this comparison what we just listened to there's too much like I don't know it's just it's tinny it's tinny in the upper end it feels like there is a for a lack of a better reference there's a piece of sheet metal up above you and the echo is causing this ever so slight ring to it and it's noticeable and when I start once it finally hit
my ear and I realized that that's what it was I that's I literally almost completely stopped listening to the other audio parts because it just predominantly it Amplified the more and more and more I heard it I think USB wide I think USB wise is the AMA I think sounded great I don't think there was anything wrong with it I actually felt like it was eq'd a little bit more than the k688 out of box I feel like there was just a little bit more presence and a little bit more bass out of box and
again all this stuff is subjective you can EQ all these microphones and you can EQ this AMA you can probably get that depth piece out as well so final verdict what's your thoughts on the AMA on the am8 I say that that is probably one of the best options for a USB 50 for 50 I think it's 50 or 60 bucks I mean you're getting an amazing quality microphone and honestly the USB variant I didn't get the dance hall present that I did out of the the XLR that's almost kind of what it made me
think of almost like I was talking in the hardwood floor room but yet this is carpet like this this room's not treated but there's plenty of treatment in here already because the stuff that's here so it's weird that it this is the only microphone that had that kind of depth let me know what did you hear it drop down in that comments um but my perspective is for 50 or 60 dollars compared to the k688 if you have the extra 20 bucks or so to spend and you don't care about RGB I think I still
would recommend the k688 I think that it's objectively a better sounding microphone I think there was a little bit less handling noise just because it is in a like shock mount here and I feel like it was just less handling noise when you tapped the RGB or the mute there was some handling noise hopefully you heard that while I was talking about it so for for that price range I do think this is a great microphone if I find if you keep putting out microphones that sound like this for this budget price you're going to
make the other manufacturers have to rethink how they price their mics they're just pricing it for the name and for the reputation because I hate to say it sm7b lives in my setup but I don't I don't need it for these for these microphones I think they're I think this is great so I think I think in the end of the day not to interrupt you I think at the end of the day if you've got 50 or 60 bucks you're not going to go wrong USB plugging this directly in into your setup is a
budget option and then having the opportunity to do an XLR for a better soundscape it is a better sound for XLR all four of the mics were better on XLR than on USB except for the sm7b it's only XLR guys all right you got any last bits as is somebody that doesn't review microphones I would lean towards this as somebody that was just looking for a microphone that's gonna go out there you want to just game you want something that's going to sound good I I personally would love to have that one I have always
loved five fine Mike I went from a Blue Yeti snowball to a five fine and it literally was like night and day so and it isn't really nice hanging upside down with the RGB so just a thought all right this will end this video if you want to go see a comparison of the buy fine k688 against a bunch of other microphones check out the video over spartacus's head and if you want to see the dedicated view of the k688 it'll be right here-ish so you know go check out that video thank you so much
for watching we'll see you over in those videos and uh this is mine now okay bye bye wow [Music]
