MAONO means ‘vision’ and MAONO definitely has a vision for providing quality peripherals at consumer-friendly prices. Boasting their USB Microphone Kits as their best sellers, MKAU got their hands on the ‘DGM20 Gamerwave Condenser USB Gaming RGB Microphone’ (what a mouthful!) to see the MAONO’s vision for audio delivery to the masses ourselves.

Straight out of the box, you will notice this thing is compact. Other than the microphone itself you will find included a pop filter, the shock-mounted stand, a boom arm joint and a USB to USB-C cord. The microphone itself is tiny, but do not let that deceive you. Shock-mounted with elastic cabling, the slightest bumps can be cushioned from disrupting your sound.

The volume control is positioned underneath the base of the microphone, and the matte surface microphone is also RGB-lit and customisable with 3 settings. At a tap of a button on the top left you can have that ambient glow, gradient style or a breathing colour eclipse in a range of satisfying colours.

With a tap on the top right button, you are able to cut the audio with a little red light indicator for mute. I do wish there was a brighter more visible mute indicator but it is sufficient. On the front, you have a pop filter to dampen your sound but emblazoned on the front is a faint ‘M’ for MAONO. A subtle detail, but stylish regardless.

Conveniently, there is also an AUX jack so you can plug your headphones in to utilise the mic as an input and output. A feature that I think is a must if you constantly are recording content. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t compatible with my particular boom arm for those above and out-of-the-way audio options but it does include a boom arm joint.

On top, you will also find tap-on, tap-off, noise reduction application. This allows for the ability to tone down the capture so your voice is delivered more clearly as you drown out background noise. Honestly, my party in Discord couldn’t really see any difference but I found the microphone generally didn’t pick up much background noise anyway.

The microphone is plug-and-play, something I respect as I loathe having complicated installation processes. It also doesn’t require any software downloads or integrations. This is both a positive and a negative; this means there is no need to tinker at the loss of the ability to customise anything about the sound quality.

So how was the sound quality on this microphone that retails at a consumer-friendly price of AU$53.00? Surprisingly, of very high quality. With a cardioid pickup pattern, you can create content, stream or talk in Discord clearly and with clarity. A sound enthusiast might be deterred by the fact it only has only one standard polar pattern. Running as a cardioid, it mostly picks up sound from the front, meaning it may not be the best for certain situations involving more than one input from different directions.

The gains pitch up nicely with your voice and pick up lows as you decrease in audio. Running at 50Hz to 20kHz, it delivers depth from bass to treble. The AUX function also allows you to have zero-latency monitoring and you really are able to monitor your sound output in real-time. So handy for podcasting and online interviews. Even more handy for cutting out the middleman, the PC, when wanting to listen to game audio. Impressive.

Coming in a range of colours, (white, black and pink) this is definitely a microphone I would recommend for any budding content creators. It’s reasonably cheap but stylish and has quality sound and audio depth. This thing might be small but it perfectly packs a punch.

Written by: Stacey