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Is it possible to get at least somewhat passable mic for under $20?
| Decent soundcard makes even the crappiest micros sound fine.
| There is a chain of components, that may be the cause for the bad sound-quality:
1. the microphone
2. the soundcard
3. the cables/connectors
4. any hard- and soft- amplifiers
If one of them is crap, the others can compensate it to a limited amount. My favorite solution is a separate, tiny and simple but good analogue amp. It worked for me even with really shitty microphones and sound-cards. The golden rule:
If you buy cheap you buy twice.
| Nope
| Just get a usb mic from target or something.
| Are you looking for a headset with mic or just a mic? I'd check eBay either way. I bought my current headset on there for about 50$ less than new and it was refurbished. Still using it a year and a bit later.
| >>306899
Idunno, what would be my best bet amp-wise? I don't really know what to look for.
Plus, would a cheap external usb sound card help at all? I think the noise on the mic is partly because it connects via 3.5
| >>308218
External USB soundcards are a pain in the ass when it comes to the configuration. But regarding the sound quality it probably could solve your issue.
I still would suggest just to get a simple analogue microphone preamp for arround 30$. A "cheap" brand is "Behringer", which is much hated by "proffessionals" but in my opinion for no reason. I have a Behringer MICROMIX MX400 and it carried and survived many crappy microphones and soundcards.
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| I basically only need it for voice chat, nothing fancy. My current throwaway mic that cost like $4 is not suitable even for that since it's way too quiet and gives lots of noise if you try to boost it.