Best Microphones for Zoom, According to the CNET Staff Who Use Them [CNET]

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Nothing is worse than being in a Zoom meeting and having your equipment let you down, either by not picking up your voice or by having poor audio quality that makes meeting company standards—as well as your own—next to impossible. That’s why it’s necessary to have a decent microphone.

As remote work becomes increasingly commonplace, Zoom and other platforms like Slack have become the main portals through which you interact with your colleagues, managers or reports. However, with so many of us working hybrid these days, including the staff at CNET, getting the right microphone for your meeting needs has never been more important.

The greater the microphone, the less chance of having a room of people asking you to talk louder or “say that again?” After all, poor audio can ruin a presentation before it’s even started and make it difficult for colleagues to realize what you’re trying to say.

And we get it. While a solid internet connection and a good webcam are most likely a bigger priority for workers (remote or otherwise), that doesn’t mean you should sleep on the importance of a good microphone and settle for whatever audio quality comes with your laptop or desktop. And a microphone doesn’t need to be pricey either, as even a cheap USB microphone may offer a big improvement without breaking the bank.

Here at CNET, we use various external microphones for our Zoom meetings and video calls, including USB mics, headsets and even earbuds with decent microphone arrays. Read below to find out more about our top picks.

mechanical keyboard, while the Kiyo just gets my voice from its perch above my monitor.
That’s not a dig at the Kiyo itself, which is better than internal microphones and most headphones. It’s a convenient all-in-one, and, given how annoying it is to switch between microphones on the half-dozen video chat platforms I use, it’s nice to have a reliable mic always plugged in and ready.

— David Lumb 

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I wish I used my Yeti Blue microphone more, but my Razer Kiyo webcam has been my workhorse mic throughout the pandemic. That’s mostly because the Blue is too good, picking up clacky keystrokes from where it sits over my mechanical keyboard, while the Kiyo just gets my voice from its perch above my monitor.
That’s not a dig at the Kiyo itself, which is better than internal microphones and most headphones. It’s a convenient all-in-one, and, given how annoying it is to switch between microphones on the half-dozen video chat platforms I use, it’s nice to have a reliable mic always plugged in and ready.

— David Lumb