This is the review of the comparison between two USB microphones from the same brand. The comparison here is between the Blue Yeti Nano and the Blue Snowball iCE. There is around fifty dollars difference in their price range and also, there are differences in their features and performances. To know which is good for you to buy, go to the detailed review.

Blue Yeti Nano	Blue Snowball iCE
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Two capsules provide cardioid or omnidirectional polar patterns. Excellent broadcast sound quality. Illuminated control dial. Plug and play – no installation. Headphone jack with low-latency monitoring.	Delivers crisp audio in a cardioid recording pattern. Small enough to toss in a backpack. A significant improvement on a computer microphone.
CONS	CONS
Gain is only adjustable via Sherpa software. Only two polar patterns. No multi-head setup. No pop filter or windscreen.	Lacks low and top-end, and is mainly mid-frequencies. Just one polar pattern. Mic stand doesn’t angle high enough for proper mouth alignment.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Blue Yeti Nano

The Blue Yeti Nano is the best microphone available for under $100 which is an absolute steal when you consider the build quality, the Blue branding, and also the audio quality. The Blue Yeti Nano is like the younger brother of the original Blue Yeti. This microphone has two polar patterns namely the cardioid and the omnidirectional.

Blue Snowball iCE

The Blue Snowball iCE microphone does come in white and black color for a fantastic price of fifty dollars. The best thing about it is, it’s super easy. You’re gonna plug into the microphone, take a USB plug it in your PC set it to that device for your input, and you are done, it’s that easy. If you haven’t heard of Blue, they offer a variety of high-quality microphones but the Snowball iCE is by far one of their most popular microphones. It’s very affordable and it’s a very good mic.

DESIGN: 

Blue Yeti Nano

As far as the controls of the microphone you do have a mute button directly on the front of the mic, which is also the volume knob as well which is used for the actual headphones themselves if you’re going to be monitoring your audio directly from the microphone. On the bottom, you do have the zero-latency headphone jack from monitoring audio, a standard thread if you wanted to use this with a boom arm for example, or some sort of stand, and then you’ve also got a micro-USB which is actually how you power the microphone. It’s not really that much bigger than a large smartphone for example.

Also, comparing it to the Blue Spark microphone, you got the stand, you’ve got the shock mount, and everything’s just a little bit larger than I think it needs to be whereas the Blue Nano fits really nicely on the desk. Also, if you want to take the microphone out, you can do it’s got the knobs there on the side which once you turn them you can actually then rotate the microphone downwards to make it even smaller for travel, and keep in a bag for example. It looks really nice on my desk, it doesn’t really take up too much space, and just having that one micro USB cable makes the setup look extremely clean.

Blue Snowball iCE

If you’re looking into doing your own YouTube videos yourself, this may be the best mic to get started cranking out those videos. It looks great, it doesn’t look cheap or cheesy or anything, even though it’s very affordable you can pick one of these things up for just around 50 dollars and it will fit right in with your setup easy and it doesn’t look like it’s out of place or anything like that. It also has a nice little stand, that’s pretty useful, it bowls right up, and it doesn’t take up too much space. Some of its parts are made out of plastic but I haven’t had any problems with that, I haven’t had any issues with it. The legs are made out of metal but I haven’t had any issues with any of the plastic parts because that doesn’t really get too much use or too much wear and tear on it.

The mic really looks good and you can see the pretty nice little stainless Blue logo on the front of the speaker there and on the back of the microphone you have your USB connection right there, so you just plug your USB in and you’re good to go. The tripod just spins underneath the speaker and attaches to there. When it is attached, there is a ball inside the speaker where the tripod gets attached to, so you can move the speaker up or down or to the sides easily from where you want to record the sound. If you are sitting in front of the mic, you can point the mic upwards because obviously, if you’re shorter it can go down so keeping it upward gonna get more of your voice. 

FEATURES:

Blue Yeti Nano

This microphone comes in nice packaging and inside the box, you are going to get your microphone themselves, you get a 1/4 inch to 5/8 inch microphone stand adapter, you get a USB cable, and also, you get some documentation. You have got one software named the Blue Sherpa for this microphone. You need to download that software to get more features on it.

In the software, the first thing you are going to notice is the format of the recording and it will allow you to change the sampling rate between 24-bit 48 kilohertz to 32 kilohertz. The next thing you are going to find in the software is the microphone gain control, which allows you to control the gain of the microphone within the software. Then you have got the polar pattern selection switch to switch between the cardioid and the omnidirectional patterns.

The next setting you are going to find in the software is the playback setting or the volume control setting for your headphones which controls the volume level you want to hear from what you have been recorded. This has the playback level slider that controls the computer’s playback that you are hearing in your headphones. Also, you do have the mute button in the software itself if you want it to mute it for some reason.

Blue Snowball iCE

In the box, first, you get your USB and it’s a nice length, so if you got your PC or whatever device a little bit away from you, so you’ll be covered well on that. Then you can get your manual which gives you all sorts of numbers of frequency and all, and you get a little tripod with it. The top part up there on the tripod is plastic, and the legs are metal, and it opens up pretty short, and then of course you’re gonna get your mic.

This is a USB mic, one of the better USB mics out there and it’s a plug-and-play system. So, all you have to do is plug this thing right into the back of the computer, and it’s ready to go, it’s ready to record some really good, really crisp audio for you right away. The snowball mic is a condenser mic, so you’ll be able to get the studio light quality without having any edit or alter the audio and posts. This is probably the best microphone that you can start off with, if you want to do voiceovers, or if you want to start doing videos to have some type of audio to them. 

PERFORMANCE:

Blue Yeti Nano

It’s got some really awesome sample rate through 24-bit at 48 kilohertz as well, so it’s gonna sound like shrilly nice, it’s got some really deep bass, and it doesn’t have too much pop as well even though there’s not any pop filter included in the box. However, you can buy one separately if you really wanted to gather super-crispy audio. You’ve got two polar patterns in this microphone, so you’ve got cardioid which is great for podcast, game, streaming, and also, for voiceovers like youtube for example. You’ve also got an omnidirectional polar pattern which is great for conference calls or just having multiple vocals.

Blue Snowball iCE

The cardioid pattern in this microphone really performs its function very well. This mic really sounds good and it picks up the sound properly in a cardioid pattern. The cardioid pattern is a polar pattern in which the mic will record the sound that comes from the front, and both sides of the mic leaving the backside of the mic. Actually, it picks up the sound in a heart-like pattern and it does its job very well.

WHICH ONE IS FOR YOU?

In my opinion, both of these microphones are really good for their price but when you need to choose any one among these two, you need to consider the things you prefer the most on your microphone like:

1. The Blue Yeti Nano is good for you to buy if you prefer cardioid and omnidirectional polar patterns both in your one microphone and also, prefer it to perform its function well.
2. The Blue Snowball iCE is good for you to buy if you want a lower budget microphone having the cardioid polar pattern and also, performs its function very well. 

Expert Reviews of Blue Yeti Nano:

By PCMag
The reasonably priced Blue Yeti Nano USB microphone delivers high-quality, crisp audio with two selectable polar patterns and a DSP-free signal chain.

By Laptop Mag
The Blue Yeti Nano combines excellent sound quality and easy setup with a lightweight, premium design.

By Tom’s Hardware
At the expense of a couple of extra polar patterns, the Blue Yeti Nano is a fantastic way to get that clean, refined Yeti sound for less than other mics in the lineup.

By Tech Radar
The Blue Yeti is a great option for anyone who just wants to plug in and play without spending hours tweaking audio settings.

By IGN
Blue continues its dominance of the USB podcasting mic space with the Yeti Nano. The smaller size is generally a bonus, and while there are a few features missing due to its shrinkage, the sound quality…

Expert Reviews of Blue Snowball iCE:

By OldTimemusic
Blue announced this mic as being better than your computer mic. It would be very difficult to be worse, wouldn’t it? Yes, it has Blue’s reliability. Yes, it has…

By PCMag
Is the Snowball Ice the best-sounding mic on the market? No. Only being 44.1kHz/16 bit does limit its sonic capabilities somewhat. And some users might miss the more or less standard (for USB mics) gain knob and headphone jack. But for $50 we’re willing to let a lot slide, and for most vocal applications, it’s more than suitable. It’s simple, and the lack of DSP means a leaner, more pure signal than you’ll get from some gaming-oriented USB mics.

By Tom’s Hardware
The Blue Snowball iCE is an excellent way to get into vocal recording or streaming if you can get used to its quirks.

By microphonegeeks.com
Blue Snowball iCE is a stylish, entry USB mic with an attractive price tag. Unlike the similar-shaped Samson Meteorite, it is not as blatantly hot and it has a detachable USB cable with…

By Forbes
Loyal readers may know that I’m a big fan of USB Microphones. For two-way video chats and podcasting, they’re absolutely brilliant. USB Mics…