Microphone Performance

The omnidirectional pinhole microphone of the ASUS ROG Cetra II Core was tested by connecting it to the Creative Sound BlasterX G6 USB sound card and an Android smartphone, through the Sharkoon Mobile DAC USB-C audio adapter (reviewed here). To review the microphone's sound and compare it to similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones, both of which fall into the studio monitor category. I connected them to the Audiolab M-DAC, a high-quality digital-to-analog converter that functions as an external sound card when connected to a PC. Testing was done in Discord, Skype, and Audacity, and I also used Audacity to record the sound from the microphone. The sound was recorded with microphone sensitivity set to 100% and not post-processed or edited in any way.

For reference, this voice recording was made with the Rode NT-USB, a high-quality studio microphone:



This is the sound recorded by using the omnidirectional pinhole microphone of the ASUS ROG Cetra II Core:




Due to the mobile nature of the ASUS ROG Cetra II Core, it is equipped with a tiny pinhole microphone, integrated on the rear side of the in-line remote control. Since there's no clothes clip, or anything else to hold the in-line remote and/or microphone in place, you can't ensure that it's positioned towards your mouth. To offset this, the integrated capsule has an omnidirectional pickup pattern, which means it picks up the sounds from all sides equally.

The microphone sounds surprisingly good considering its size and position, although one detail should be noted: When connecting it to your PC, you'll have to adjust the microphone gain to 100% and then boost the microphone input by no less than +30 dB. Otherwise, the microphone will sound too quiet to be of any use. Of course, boosting the microphone input by so much introduces a significant level of background hiss, but this is where ASUS's background noise suppression algorithm kicks in. When you're not talking, the microphone is so quiet to your teammates that you can safely use Discord's Voice Activity microphone setting rather than resorting to the annoying Push to Talk mode. It's a good thing ASUS implemented the microphone noise suppression feature so well for one other reason: As I've mentioned earlier in the review, a dedicated microphone mute switch is nowhere to be seen on the ROG Cetra II Core.

All in all, while this microphone isn't viable for anything other than basic VoIP communication while gaming with your friends, it does that job decently.