I got this little mic as part of a package of two mics from MXL for $100. I wanted a couple low cost mics to take with me when I was traveling that I wouldn't have to worry too much about if something happened to them. This one is the small diaphragm condenser mic. You will mostly want to use this in the studio, using this live would likely result in a number of bleed problems. It has a standard XLR connection. It does require phantom power to be used since it's a condenser. It's a cardioid pickup type, and can't be switched to other polar patterns. It doesn't have a pad, which can be frustrating on this particular mic.

OVERALL OPINION

I bought this mic package about 3 years ago. The main reason I got it was just because it was so cheap - that is definitely its best asset. The sound quality on this mic is pretty bad. Everything sounds very tinny and crispy. It's a very harsh sounding mic. Thankfully I was only ever going to use it for recording rough demos where sound quality wasn't a big concern. I had two other problems with this mic. One is that for some reason the output on this mic is very high, so that when recording a loud source I could not get it to stop clipping even my preamp gain was set to almost 0. Maybe there was something wrong with mine? I didn't have that long to figure it out though, because this mic suddenly stopped working after about a year. I didn't drop it or anything, it just ceased functioning. I tried to open it up and maybe solder a loose wire, but I couldn't find the problem. Basically, this is a very cheap, piece of junk mic. If you just want to record something simple, you're probably better off getting a computer mic for $20. I wouldn't get it again.