Microphone Performance

The boom microphone of the Cougar Immersa was tested by connecting it to the Asus ROG STRIX X99 Gaming motherboard. It uses an integrated sound card with Realtek's ALC1150 audio codec, including a number of software tweaks for suppressing ambient noise and adding various effects, which were all turned off for this test in order to obtain the microphone's raw, unmodified sound. I also used an external USB sound card, Creative's cheap Sound Blaster E1 ($42), and again turned off all the software features that could affect the microphone's sound.

To review the microphone's sound and compare it to those of other similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones, being studio monitors, connected to Audiolab's M-DAC, a high quality digital-to-analog converter that functions as an external sound card when connected to a PC. The testing was done in Discord, TeamSpeak, Skype, and Audacity, and I also used Audacity to record sound from the microphone. The sound was recorded with microphone sensitivity set to 100% and was not post-processed or edited in any way.

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



This is the sound recorded by using the boom microphone the Cougar Immersa is supplied with:




The microphone is clear and loud. It won't pick up much of the depth of your voice, but absolutely nobody will have any trouble hearing and understanding you. It's worth noting that it doesn't pick up a lot of static noise when connected to the motherboard. That's a feature anyone who doesn't plan to upgrade to an external USB sound card should appreciate.

Cougar claims that the microphone uses noise-canceling technology to filter out background noise, but I have to admit I really couldn't tell if it does anything as the Cherry MX Red switches on my mechanical keyboard were as audible as ever while simultaneously typing and talking.

Could the microphone be used for Twitch streaming? Yeah, it could. How about YouTube voiceovers? Perhaps if you're running a very small channel where your viewers won't be very demanding. For serious YouTube productions, you'll want a better microphone, one with better dynamics and a more natural sound.

Since the Immersa's main competitor for the title of the best $50 headset is the HyperX Cloud Stinger, let's hear what its microphone sounds like:




As you can hear, it's a very different type of sound. If I had to choose the better microphone of the two, I'd go for the HyperX Stinger due to it being more natural and uncolored.