Microphone Performance

The microphone of the MSI Immerse GH30 was tested by connecting it to the Asus Maximus XI Formula motherboard and the Creative Sound Blaster E1, a $50 external USB sound card. To review the microphone's sound and compare it to other similar headsets, I used the Adam A7X speakers and Shure SRH840 headphones, both 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. 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 detachable microphone supplied with MSI Immerse GH30:




The microphone sounds as expected—fairly thin and with no depth or true naturality to speak of. Having said that, it's perfectly usable for communicating with teammates over Discord or TeamSpeak, which means it manages its main job properly. I had no complains in terms of not being loud enough. I was also able to use it in "Voice Activated" mode; the capsule isn't so unrefined that it would pick anything around it up.

As for the competition, it should be said that there are better gaming headset microphones in the $50 price bracket. Take a listen of the following samples.






The HyperX Cloud Stinger, Onikuma K5, and even Corsair HS35 Stereo all have better microphones than the MSI Immerse GH30. On the flip side, none come anywhere close to the Immerse GH30 in terms of sound quality.