Ultra-versatile, Phenomenal sound for USB

USB microphones are coming in strong, with some pseudo-professional podcasters and Youtubers looking for great quality sound. The Yeti Pro, in particular, shines brighter and sounds better than any other USB microphone I've encountered.

The Yeti Pro is big, and feels very sturdy. The knobs don't feel cheap (the 'polar pattern' knob is almost difficult to turn). The gain knob stays put where you set it. The built-in headphone amplifier is loud and beefy.

Technically, the microphone is not as dummy-proof as I hoped it would be. Most USB mics are installed as external sound cards, which makes them plug-n-play. The Yeti Pro requires special drivers. But I'll overlook this because the utility sits in my task manager with a nice small footprint of 1,188 K.

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The sound of the microphone itself is certainly the best I've personally heard from any USB mic. The highs are crisp but not delicate, and vocal sibilance is not painful. The lows and low-mids are about as strong as you could get from small-diaphragm condensers. The overall sound is crisp and fairly accurate, but not overwhelmingly smooth. There's surprisingly little self-noise; this is a quiet microphone (laptop users may want to be unplugged to avoid noise from their charger).

Cardioid mode: nothing spectacular. I've used it on a clean guitar amp, solo trombone, and solo alto sax. It can handle brass and woodwind instruments pretty well.

Stereo mode: a glorified XY configuration, with not a narrow stereo field. It's sounds good with acoustic guitar or vocals, but don't try to use it with a choir.

Omnidirectional mode: smoother response curve, but picks up too much room ambience to be used for music recording (except in well-treated rooms). This mode would probably work well sitting on big teleconference table.

Figure-8 mode: smooths out the response curve pickup at the expense of more room ambience. This mode could be used in an interview setting, even though its output is mono.

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Bottom line: A very versatile mic, with a great sound the closest to studio-quality you can get from a USB mic. But it specializes in nothing: so it's not best for studio applications.

Blue Yeti Pro

This mic sounds great I've been using it to record our Open Mic nights the sound quality is brilliant, Well worth the money for the versatility.