I’ve been on a quest for the ideal affordable audio setup, being on a very tight budget. So, I’ve been working with a lot of audio equipment lately–especially the discount kind. One of the factors in considering audio equipment is quality. Like most musicians, I don’t have money to waste. Thus, anything I buy has to be good value for the money.
This brings me to the Blue Yeti, this perennial favorite of the podcast community for voice recording work. After checking out the Yeti, I’m afraid that I’ve joined the Blue Yeti Haters Club[tm] for a number of reasons.
What Makes a Yeti?
Any microphone takes sound and converts it to an analog electrical signal. That analog signal is converted into a digital signal using a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). And that signal is sent to a computer or digital recorder. With broadcast quality audio recording systems, the microphone is separated from the DAC.
The Yeti promises an all-in-one package of microphone and DAC that plugs directly into your computer by a USB cord. No muss, no fuss, no complicated equipment, and you don’t have to learn anything about sound engineering.
Sounds Great!!! But I still hate it. Why? Glad you asked. Those who swear by the Yeti make three promises: (1) it is popular, (2) it is cheap, and (3) it produces good recordings.
The Yeti is Popular!
There’s no denying that the Yeti is popular. The fact that “everyone uses it” should never be a reason for loving (or hating) anything. But I can express revolt over the Yeti becoming a sacrosanct podcasting icon, with people doing lewd acts to their microphone or stroking it like a pet tribble. When a piece of equipment becomes elevated to the status of an icon, rationality flies out the window and group-think takes over. People love this microphone even without critically assessing its sound quality.
Frankly, I don’t like the retro styling of the Yeti that has contributed to its popularity. The Yeti is really large for a microphone, and that is before you add a pop filter–you are adding a pop filter, aren’t you?
The Yeti uses a solid metal desk stand. While this might seem good, this solid metal stand also conducts noise into the microphone. Not a good thing. The Yeti is not compatible with standard audio equipment, such as, microphone stands or shock mounts.
The Yeti is Cheap?
Yeah, not so much. At around $150, this might sound like an affordable option because you don’t have to buy an audio interface or XLR cables. Sounds good until you consider certain things about the Yeti.
First, you can buy a complete XLR microphone setup that meets or exceeds the quality of the Yeti for about $120 (Neewer XLR microphone = $35 and Behringer audio interface =$80). And with that XLR setup, you have the flexibility to upgrade any component in the audio chain without scrapping everything that you invested. Spend a little more than an Yeti and you start achieving quantum leaps in sound quality.
And if one feels that they can sacrifice quality for price, the Yeti still doesn’t make sense. The Snowball (also made by Blue) offers almost the same audio quality–since small differences in quality supposedly don’t matter–but only costs $65.
The Yeti is Good?
With less expensive alternatives available, quality then becomes the deciding factor. If the Yeti had superior recording quality, this would probably be the only thing that could justify that purchase. All things being equal, the ultimate test of any microphone is its ability to record sound. And here is where I found the Yeti most lacking.
Every recording that I have heard done with the Yeti has an annoying hum that is easily audible. Many examples of this hum can be found in YouTube recordings (see here at 3:47). The irony is that most reviewers of the Yeti seem to be completely oblivious to the hum.
The hum is not unique to the Yeti. Several USB microphones have it. And the reason is because in order to fit an amplifier and a DAC into the microphone, the circuitry has to be economized. This is also why the sampling rate on the Yeti is so poor (16-bit/48 KHz) relative to what XLR audio interfaces offer. Several audio interfaces offer DACs that sample at 24-bit/192 KHz.
But does sampling rates matter? Absolutely. If you ever have to change the tempo of your recording or downsample it, a low quality recording will degrade and you will start to hear information loss. This is true even if you only distribute CD quality (44 KHz) recordings.
But… But… What about the Cool Features?
The Blue Yeti has two other features that are worth mentioning. One is the selector switch that can change the sensitivity pattern from a cardiod (heart-shaped) pattern into an omnidirectional or figure-8 pattern. The problem is those other sensitivity patterns only rarely serve any practical purpose. Most of us are going to want a cardiod pattern for our mics because we want to capture our voice and exclude the other ambient noise in the room.
The other feature that the Blue Yeti offers is stereo recording, a feature (almost) nobody needs. Professional sound studios normally record in mono then pan the track to make the final product stereo. A good quality mono track always beats a poor stereo recording.
The Blue Yeti is a substandard, marginal microphone that has features nobody serious about audio recording needs. If price matters more than quality, the Snowball is a better choice. If quality matters, you would do better with practically any XLR rig. The only people who “need” the Blue Yeti are those wanting to pose with it.
