Mic recommendations for regular online voice chatting?

[hutt132]

I regularly do online voice chatting on Skype, TeamSpeak, and online games. My friends always complain about my current microphone sounding awful (it's a really cheap mic), and I want to upgrade to a more "professional" sounding microphone that is clear and doesn't pick up much background noise. My environment is a smallish room with my computer running, so there is some fan noise.

My budget is around $80. There isn't much room on my desk for a tall microphone because it would block the view of my monitor. I also have a Xonar Essence STX sound card I could plug a 3.5mm microphone into if I got one with that connectivity.

My friend recommended: Samson Go Mic Compact USB Microphone
I like the looks of the Samson Meteor Mic USB Studio Microphone because I can adjust the height of the built-in tripod, so it doesn't block the view of my monitor.

What are some other microphones that would be a better choice than the two listed above?

 

[Chili]

Maybe you should check out the gaming websites. This place is more for recording music at home. Not really about online chatting.

 

[hutt132]

Maybe you should check out the gaming websites. This place is more for recording music at home. Not really about online chatting.

I thought "gaming" mics are only attached to headsets. I've never seen one by itself before. Usually items branded as "gaming" are low quality and you're just paying for the "gaming" name.

 

[Chili]

I like the looks of the Samson Meteor Mic USB Studio Microphone...

The Samson USB mic is low quality. You want to do online chatting... this isn't the site for that. I'm sure you found this place from a google search... you should keep searching.

 

[Tadpui]

And honestly, a headset mic is probably what you want for chatting/gaming anyways. They tend to minimize ambient noise from your room since they don't need much gain, being very close to the sound source (your mouth). And with some of them, you can configure them to send only voice to the headset while your computer's system sounds are still routed to your speaker system. Even moderately priced gaming headsets have very good sound quality and since the voice chat audio is so compressed, it doesn't take a very high quality mic to get the job done.