Microphone Performance

The omnidirectional microphone of the XPG PRECOG Studio was tested by connecting the headset to the PC using the supplied USB dongle. 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 Topping A90 Discrete, a high-quality headphone amplifier and speaker preamplifier. The EVGA NU Audio Pro sound card handled the digital-to-analog conversion, connected to Topping's excellent unit with the AudioQuest Evergreen RCA cable. Testing was done in Discord 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 detachable omnidirectional microphone of the XPG PRECOG Studio.



The microphone quality is very good. There's no audible compression or hollowness that's sometimes present on omnidirectional microphones that come with inexpensive gaming headsets. Since you're connecting it to the supplied USB dongle, you don't have to worry about the quality of your integrated sound card's microphone input. You're getting a microphone with no annoying static noise and sufficient gain for everyday usage. The omnidirectional pickup pattern means it could potentially pick up the mashing of your mechanical keyboard. To prevent that from happening, place the capsule close to your mouth and lower the microphone gain.