This is the comparison review between two microphones i.e. Blue Yeti X and Elgato wave 3. Both microphones have different features and designs. Blue Yeti X is more expensive than Elgato wave 3. Through this comparison, you will get a clear idea about both microphones and it will make it easy for you to decide which one is best for you.

Blue Yeti X	Elgato wave 3
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
LED live metering. Excellent construction. Sleek Design Phenomenal sound quality. Recording software included. Simple Plug-And-Play Setup.	Solid, clean audio signal. Lightweight and elegant design. Low-latency monitoring. Easy-to-operate onboard level controls Built-in stand. Free software.
CONS	CONS
No pop filter or adapter for a standard mic stand. Expensive. Dials feel a little loose and plastic. Attracts smudges.	Expensive. Partially plastic build. No switchable mic patterns. Pop filter not included. USB only.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Blue Yeti X

The Blue Yeti X has the new look and classic features. It is available for $169.99. It has LED metering, A four-condenser capsule array. It includes advanced Blue voice audio software. The software includes seven broadcast vocal effects that work together to craft the vocal sound. Yeti X allows greater flexibility after recording and cleaning, as it does not uses DSP. it gives a pure signal with no EQ or compression.

Elgato wave 3

Elgato wave 3 is absolutely awesome. It’s designed specifically for content creators with the goal being streamlined workflow, excellent audio quality, and, simple to control interface for twitch streams, YouTube videos, or podcasts. The nice thing about this is that Elgato combined this microphone launch with a new piece of mixing software called wave link which again is designed for the type of work that a lot of us do versus what you might need in a recording studio. Together it creates a simple but very powerful workflow for creators.  

DESIGN: 

Blue Yeti X

Blue Yeti X microphone has a fresh new look and also some amazing features. The black and silver design of the Yeti X  is very appealing. The way it looks is nice. It has a nice chrome look, even the base looks nice. It does have all the new knobs done up there, so it moves very smoothly and it just stays there which is very nice. Through the knob if you hold it, you will be able to adjust the headphones on the fly, if you hold it once more you will be able to adjust that both the blend of microphone and headphones there. Yeti X has 14-millimeter condenser capsules. The bitrate of Blue Yeti X is 24.

Looking at the polar patterns Blue Yeti X has cardioid, omnidirectional, bi-directional, and, stereo. Yeti X has a new high-resolution LED array that shows the voice levels. The good point of Yeti X is that you can see the voice levels. The microphone itself does have the micro USB instead of Type-C USB, which everyone would love to have, considering when this was released that would have been a much better choice to have in there.

Elgato wave 3

The box is consistent with legato branding in terms of look and feel. The wave looks really clean. It’s all matte black, so it should fit right in with pretty much any setup. It’s got a little bit of an old-school look. It comes attached to a desk stand which raises them a couple of inches off the surface of the desk. Also, it lets you pivot the microphone to get to the right angle. The stand is made of metal and it’s nice and heavy. There’s also the rubbery material on the bottom that’s gonna keep your mic from moving around and provide some dampening, so less of the sounds that you make by hitting your desk or moving your mouse is transferred to the microphone.

At the bottom of the microphone and the frame seems to be made of plastic and the grate is metal. It also has a nice panel on the front with a multifunctional dial. The dial lets you adjust input gain output volume and the crossfade between your mic and the PC audio mix. What they did with this design is really likable, instead of adding separate dials for each function, you can just press the dial and then it will alternate between all three options. The first option is mic gain which adjusts the volume of your voice. The second option is the monitor volume, so on the back of the mic it has a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, so you can just throw in a pair of headphones and monitor your audio, while recording and the second position will adjust the headphone volume. The third option adjusts the mix between the real-time monitoring and the audio coming from your computer as it’s being played through the headphones. With all three options, you’re gonna use the knob to make adjustments and you’ll see the LEDs light up to indicate the levels.

FEATURES:

Blue Yeti

Blue Yeti X has the multifunctional knob there, through which you will be able to switch from headphone volume, microphone gain, blend, and, mute. Also, on the back, there are knobs just like before when we were able to switch the patterns. If you will look at the overall microphone, without turning it on, you will just feel that it is a high-quality microphone. Also, when you will mute the microphone, it will not move, wherein the original Yeti you have to press and then wait until it blinks just to make sure that it is muted. All the colors are RGB. The other cool thing is this you can go ahead and use the Logitech G hub which you can make many differences.

The other good thing is the lighting part. As there is green lighting you will able to change everything from there, you can change live color from green to blue it will change in seconds which is amazing. You can also change it back to green. Also, there’s like live effects, there’s breathing, and, mute effects. Also, under mute effects, you will also be able to set it, so it can do the breathing effect as well. And, if you go under the mode, you do have a few things there. So, the patterns were able to switch the colors for the pattern and you don’t really need to go in the back of the mic and choose the pattern, you can just click it so you’ll remember the color and you know exactly which pattern you have selected. So that’s a very cool feature.

In the metering, the meter will be green on the microphone but goes yellow then red if it’s too much. So you will able to switch all of that which is really amazing. If you go under the 3.5-millimeter output there are some settings there as well which you can change, the volume and the microphone and all those settings. You can also adjust some small things like the base and the EQ, so you can enable the fancy queues and all that after you plug the microphone. So you have all those options there.

Elgato wave 3

In the Box, there is an 8 foot USB – USB C cable which will plug into the back of the wave and then connect it to your computer. The fact that it has such a long cable because you can easily get this to reach my PC without needing an extension cable. Another great feature that Elgato added to wave 3 is this capacitive or tap to mute at the top, this feature is so convenient to tap it whenever you need to quickly mute or unmute the mic. When you will press it, you’ll see that the LED are on the multifunction dial turns red then it goes back to white if you tap the mic again.

An amazing feature about which you should really care about is called clip guard, essentially this works like a hard limiter so that your audio doesn’t clip. If you’ve ever seen Audio waves or an audiometer, you know that they move up and down depending on how loud your recording is and if you get too loud based on the gain level that you selected you’ll start hearing the horrible distortion in the audio and that’s called clipping. You can easily replicate this by turning up the volume beyond what a pair of headphones or speakers are supposed to output, with a speaker or headphones that’s not a huge deal because you can turn the volume down and continue to listen. But, when you’re recording if you record audio that’s distorted because you either got really excited during a part of a game or you’re talking about something that you’re really passionate about, your source will be ruined.

A couple of important features, so you can create two independent output mixes one that you listen to in your headphones and another one for your audience and you can monitor them on the fly, an example where this would come into play is let’s say you want to play a game while you’re listening to your favorite playlist but you don’t want that included in your stream because you know copyright issues. So, you can still listen to your favorite music in your mix and then use royalty-free music in the actual stream. You can incorporate up to eight channels so you can have multiple mics, game, voice chat, music alerts, and, samples and then in real-time mix your vocals with those eight other sources which are crazy powerful.

Elgato who designed the wave in collaboration with the audio experts at LeWitt integrated what they called their proprietary clip card technology into the analog to digital converter. Now this means that the wave will automatically compress those super high sounds before they clip and then deliver the proper levels to your computer. So what does that actually mean to you, it means you can set your levels one time and then completely forget about them. There’s also a multi-layered internal pop filter which will help knock down some of those plosives and make your audio easier to listen to. If you want to take the next step there Elgato does sell an external pop filter for 29.99 and that fits right on the front of the microphone.

PERFORMANCE:

Blue Yeti X

Once you will install the Logitech G hub software, you will be able to hear from the blue yeti x microphone. So, after installing, all you need to do is go click there and it has some amazing presets there. You can also just adjust the microphone gain straight from there, you don’t even need to go over there on the knob, you can adjust it right from the software. Also the polar patterns, you will able to switch the polar patterns like Omni, stereo all that stuff. For the mike tests, you have a little record button there and play, you will be able to test out the mic if it’s the right gain, or if you are using a preset if it sounds good.

When you will enable blue voice, you are going to hear some of the difference there. You can change the gain, you can keep 60 and lower it to 44 or 42. You can use the broadcaster one preset, which you will definitely hear a difference there. Then you can go ahead and switch to classic radio. It sounds a little bit better where it’s around the 40 range. Other than the classic radio voice there also some other ones that are cribs, modern, warm, and, vintage. You can enable and disable the blue voice and keep it normal if you want. The good thing about the blue voice is that you will be able to play the EQ, adjust everything, and also save that so you can use it going forward.

There are 4 polar patterns:- cardioid, omnidirectional, Bi-directional, and, stereo. You change the pattern as per your convenience but generally, the cardioid pattern is used. You will be able to know the differences in the voice as every pattern has a different voice. If you select cardioid, it will only pick up your voice. If you choose Omni, you will be able to hear a little bit of difference. If you choose stereo or bi-directional you will be able to hear some noise coming from it.

Elgato wave 3

If you listen to the different gain levels from the microphone you will get different voices in every gain level. From the lowest level moving on to the second dot and then going to the third one, you will hear that it will start to amplify your voice. The nice thing as you will move to the higher gain levels there is whether the microphone does clip or if the clip card actually works and stops you from clipping. As you move gain among four and then five and then six, it’s almost at the highest level that this microphone can record. You will see the levels over on your computer. It will be interesting to see whether it actually got to zero and distorted or if the clip guard actually kept it below that. You should only use the audio from your cameras as a last resort. Whenever you have an option you should use an external microphone, using an external microphone is always going to give you better sound than the microphone on your camera because it’s positioned so much closer to you and it has better audio components than what your camera has.

Once you have everything set up and mastered you can bring the link as a master audio source into OBS. In these types of workflow, improvements remove the friction from the creative process. you can also set up audio profiles so you can instantly mute your mic and turn on music during a break or you can mute your mic and then turn up the in-game audio during a cutscene. Essentially you can create multiple profiles and then quickly and easily switch between them whenever you want. Since wave link works with stream deck you can access your audio features at the touch of a button. Elgato says the wave link uses less than 1% of your CPU and there’s no need for any audio processing hardware.

This microphone is called a side-address mic, which means that you don’t want the top of the microphone pointed at your mouth, you want to have the side which in this case is the front pointed at your mouth and that’s because the capsule is pointed your way and not up. For the best results, position the mic about eight inches away from your mouth. The microphone has a cardioid pickup pattern, meaning that it’s gonna pick up sound coming from the front then it’s gonna start rejecting sounds that come from the sides and definitely from the back. To put it simply if you have the side of the microphone pointed at your mouth it will focus on what you’re saying and it will try to blackout the rest of the sounds coming from other directions.

Whether you use a shock mount or not the wave does come with an adapter so that you can attach it to an existing boom arm. That gets the mic off the desk so it does not come in your way and it lets you position it at any angle that you want and it works really well. Ideally, you would want to shock month for best results, and if that’s something that you’re interested you can get an optional shock mount for $39.99, which you can attach to a boom or microphone arm.

WHICH TO BUY?

Blue Yeti X has the voice level alone which people will love having there, it looks good. Also the mute and everything looks good. you will be able to adjust everything easily. so this time around we have the Logitech G hub which makes the microphone a hundred times better because you’re able to adjust things from the software. Definitely, it does a great job to the voice quality, also it has a 24-bit rate which definitely makes it a professional microphone. So, if you are looking for a professional microphone, go for Blue Yeti X. It costs $169.99.

The Elgato wave 3 is custom-built for creators. If you’re looking to start streaming, if you are gaming, doing a podcast, or if you need a voiceover mic for youtube videos or tutorials the wave 3 is an excellent option. I think this is a very powerful combo. we’re getting great audio quality, a very user-friendly interface with very intuitive controls sound distortion protection with clip guard, and an easy-to-use but powerful digital mixer. Wave 3 sells for $159.99

Expert Reviews of Blue Yeti X:

By PCmag
Like most Blue microphones, the Yeti X is first and foremost a DSP-free mic, so you’re getting a pure signal with no EQ or compression. If you prefer to record with DSP presets, consider the aforementioned $200 Shure MV51. BlueVoice software does, in a way, provide..

By venturebeat
The Blue Yeti X USB microphone is so good it is making me consider dropping my XLR setup. XLR has the potential to sound far better than USB, but the Yeti X is beyond “good enough” with the Blue Voice processing. And USB is so much cleaner and simpler. If you are a part-time creator on Twitch or YouTube, the Yeti X is…

By Laptop
The Blue Yeti X is an excellent microphone. It sports a sleek design outfitted with colorful and customizable LEDs. On the inside, you have a solid, four-capsule-condenser array backed by… 

By IGN
Even with the extra premium over the cost of the original Yeti, the Yeti X is an outstanding microphone that could easily become the new icon for streamers. I love the streamlined design but it’s the excellent and superbly customizable vocal capture that seals the deal. The Yeti X…

By GEEKDAD
Blue says its award-winning microphone is ideal for gaming, streaming, and podcasting. My use was pretty pedestrian—video voiceovers in iMovie—but the results are night and day better than anything…

Expert Reviews of Elgato Wave 3

By Macworld
If you’re recording vocal content directly on your computer, the Wave:3 is a killer deal. $160 is very competitive with other high-quality microphones, most of which don’t have the Wave:3’s simple and…

By Laptop
The Elgato Wave 3 is an excellent USB Microphone. For $159, you get a device that provides excellent sound whether you’re live streaming or recording. The proprietary software is easy-to-use and allows you to blend multiple audio sources, including mics, without…

By tom’sHARDWARE
The Wave:3, Elgato’s first flagship gaming microphone effort, ushers in a bounty of features and smart considerations that you don’t find on other mics. It’s thanks to features like Clipguard and the built-in pop shield that the Wave:3 justifies its price tag and earns…

By  theguruof3d
If you want to stream, podcast, or record gaming videos for YouTube/Twitch, one of the first steps is picking up a good microphone as they are able to offer that extra bit in audio quality and control you need to be a live content creator. There are plenty of options on the market, the latest one comes…

By PC
Consider the Elgato Wave: 3 a solid tool of convenience. Pretty much all the controls you need are right there on the front panel, and they’re all intuitive, with LED metering to guide you. You have low-latency…