Shure MV5C Microphone

This mic’s benefits are loud and clear

If you’ve spent lockdown struggling to make yourself heard in video calls, either because your laptop’s microphone isn’t up to scratch or the background noise in your household regularly rises above the volume of your own voice, then Shure’s MV5C may come to the rescue.

It’s a relatively inconspicuous addition to your desk, standing at only 14cm tall, and cuts quite a dash with its retro styling and black finish. If anything, it’s too light, and is easily knocked over by accident. It also requires a USB cable, which trails out of the back. The supplied cable is only 1m long, so it can’t be used too far away from your laptop.

The diminutive dome houses two tiny buttons: one for muting (which turns a row of three LEDS red) and one to activate the speech-enhancement mode. You’ll know if this on because the leftmost of those LEDS turns green, with the middle LED simply showing that it’s active and connected. The third light indicates that headphones are plugged into the 3.5mm jack. Note that you can adjust the headphone volume using a tiny volume control.

What really matters, though, is sound quality, and the MV5C lives up to Shure’s reputation in this field with clear voice capture that’s vastly superior to most built-in laptop mics. It’s more than good enough for recording podcasts, too.

Shure recommends you switch on the speech-enhancement mode during video calls, which genuinely works to make your voice clearer and louder. The MV5C is a top-class performer.

VERDICT

A top-quality mic with a handy speech-enhancementent mode, but it’s not cheap ★★★★ ☆

ALTERNATIVE

Blue Snowball ICE £55 A cheaper microphone that improves your PC’S soundd quality but doesn’t have voice-enhancing features