HyperX is one of the most well-known gaming peripheral and hardware manufacturers on the market today. Making everything from mice to keyboards and computer hardware, the company has worked with everyone. We’re talking esports legends like Daigo Umehara, to celebrities like Post Malone. This is to say that a HyperX product comes with a certain expectation of quality. It makes me happy to tell you that HyperX’s latest microphone, the Quadcast S, is definitely no exception.
Coming in at a price tag of $159.99, the Quadcast S settles nicely into the middle range of prices for microphones. The quality it provides though is more akin to mics that cross the $200 mark. Right out of the box, the Quadcast S is an elegantly designed and straightforward product. It has a gain knob at the bottom to adjust sensitivity, a tap to mute sensor at the top, a jack to plug in your favorite headphones, and a very long USB cable. That way it can plug into your desktop, or at a distance through a console very easily.
It also features a knob to adjust the polar pattern of the sound. This makes it easy to set the mic for whatever purpose you need. I podcast frequently, so the cardioid pattern was perfect for me. It only picks up sound coming from the front when I talk, and drastically reduces sound from the sides while almost completely eliminating sound behind it. I had an active fan on my desk while recording and it wasn’t picked up at all. The cord does need to be stored somehow if you are only using it from a short distance like I was, but it wraps around the base of the mic very easily.
All prices are listed in USD.
Credit: HyperX
Utility and versatility rolled into one
The mic is attached to its base with small elastic ropes. These help to prevent small sounds (like bumping a table) from being picked up. It also includes a mount adaptor that fits 3/8 and 5/8 inch threaded setups making it fit most mic stands and boom arms. There is also an internal pop filter to make sure that you’re ponderous pontifications never pop too pronounced. The Quadcast S is incredibly versatile being PC, Mac, and console compatible, as well as being TeamSpeak and Discord certified. It also plays nice with all the major streaming programs like Streamlabs OBS, OBS Studio, and XSplit.
The sound quality from the mic is incredible, with its various features like the suspended base, pop filter, and different polar pattern settings making sure that your sound comes in as clear and crisp as possible. The touch-to-mute sensor is also borderline impossible to accidentally hit due to being at the very top of the mic. However, one of the biggest stand out features of the mic that I haven’t even mentioned yet is its RGB light functionality.
The lights on the Quadcast S are bright and vibrant. They are also completely customizable through the beta program NGENUITY that can be downloaded from the HyperX site. With this program, you can manually adjust mic volume, mic monitoring, and headphone volume. It also shows what polar pattern you are currently on. However, that can only be adjusted manually via the knob on the mic. As far as visuals, you can change the light patters on the mic completely to your liking. There are also options to change the light brightness and set presets for your different patterns. These patterns can even be linked to certain games via GameLink so that your settings are always automatically applied when you start up that particular game.
Credit: HyperX
A lightshow of your very own
There are multiple effects like solid, blink, cycle, lightning, and wave. You can also adjust the opacity for all of the different lighting effects together, or just for a specific one. Of course you can also change the colors themselves, as well as the speed of the effects. I changed mine to a simple solid pattern of my preferred shade of my favorite color. All I can say is that it looks amazing in green, no matter the brightness setting. And I was able to make the perfect lightning setup for myself and it was incredibly easily with the simple and intuitive NGENUITY program.
The best part is that if you own other HyperX products with RGB lights, you can customize them all with this one program. This way you can set your entire desktop light pattern exactly how you want. When you have multiple products all synched together, the effect is very cool (from the HyperX site). Unfortunately, the audio side of the program is a bit lacking. It doesn’t have nearly as many audio customization options as some other similarly priced mics, but NGENUITY is still in its beta phase. It is entirely possible that more audio options may become available in time.
However that isn’t really what the Quadcast S is about. It is about simplicity and delivering a specific experience for a specific consumer. For someone like me who isn’t very technically inclined, I was relieved to find how simple it was to set up the mic, use it, and adjust the audio and lighting patterns. With its incredible versatility, the Quadcast S is perfect for podcasters and streamers looking for a simple yet very effective microphone that can deliver high quality sound without breaking the bank. I do wish there were slightly more audio options to customize. Though I can’t complain much with the level of utility that the Quadcast S provides. You can check out the Quadcast S, as well as more HyperX products, on the company website.
Published: Oct 28, 2020 09:30 am