[PaulDavisThe1st]

One small point I'd like to make regarding USB mics (and USB headsets): the #1 rule of digital audio is to only have a single sample clock for the entire system (the sample clock is the thing that defines when a voltage value gets converted to/generated from a digital sample).

Although I understand the plug-n-play appeal of these devices, they uniformly violate this rule because they cannot share whatever sample clock is being used for the other "direction" (i.e. the USB mic has its own clock, which is independent from the one used for playback).

Using these sorts of devices implicitly requires the audio software stack to do resampling to keep both input and output in sync with each other. For podcasting the change in quality that this causes is probably not an issue, but users should at least be aware this is happening under the hood.

You're much better off getting a cheap USB audio interface, an XLR mic and doing both recording and playback via the same device (with a single sample clock).

[sysashi]

I've recently made a present for myself on birthday - behringer umc22 + sm 58 mic. previous to that present were m40x headphones.

After using those headphones for couple years, I now see the difference between audio output of a laptop and simple interface like umc22 (which has own DAC + amp as I understand).

I have not found much use for mic yet (guess no one has called me since), besides recording birds outside, and generally having fun with it :D but I definitely love how headphones sound after getting audio interface (or DAC+amp part of it)

[rasz]

Are you claiming to be able to "hear" resampling, and I dont mean 20 year old naive implementations like Cretive SB Live. Sample clock, and its phase is irrelevant as long as you pass Nyquist threshold, reconstructed signal will be indistinguishable from original.

You might want to read https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I cite xiph.org/monty's videos to people all the time, just to be clear (I write a DAW for a living).

If you check out infinitewave.ca you will see that actually there are still lots of resampling implementations with notable artifacts, certainly when subject to measurement.

Can you hear them? Depends on the nature of the artifacts. I'd agree that in general, the answer is no.

Nevertheless, it is still wrong in my opinion for these mics to be spreading (or even being made) without it being clear what they imply for the user. You might not hear the effect, and you might not care, but you should understand clearly what using these devices require from whatever software stack you're using.

[zigzaggy]

What would that look like? Can you provide a couple of specific pieces of hardware examples?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Any USB audio interface such as those made by Focusrite, MOTU and many others. That plugs into your computer.

Any XLR mic, such as the Shure models mentioned in the article. That plugs into the audio interface.

Any (analog+wired) headphones (you'll have my MDR-7506s over my dead body). These plug into the audio interface.

Done.