Razer Seiren Mini Microphone Review
Review Outline
What’s in the box
Overall sound
Polar pattern
Distance performance
Background noise
Plosives and sibilance
Verdict
What’s in the box
Micro USB opening
This end goes in the mic. Awkwardly shaped end to work with.
The Razer Seiren Mini (Amazon) is a USB condenser microphone. It is plug and play, meaning you don’t need any extra software to get it working. It installs in seconds after plugging in. The mic comes in quartz (pink), black, and mercury (white). There is no gain knob or headphone jack, and the actual body can be tilted slightly in any direction. This can be attached to a boom arm with a standard 5/8 inch thread.
Make sure to take off that little pink tube if you already attached it in order to do this. The USB has a very… strange shape that made it difficult to properly place in my shock mount, so I just screwed it on directly. This design avoids any sort of bending up top, but I’m not sure this was necessary.
Overall Sound
Razer’s Seiren Mini is a relatively flat frequency response microphone, but it retains more of the low end than common devices like the Blue Yeti. The bass isn’t overly booming and unnatural, which makes it perfect for spoken word such as streaming or video conferencing.
Polar Pattern
This microphone records in a supercardiod pattern (mynewmicrophone.com). It mainly picks up sound from the front and rejects sounds from the sides. However, it still lets in some sound from immediately behind it unlike the normal cardiod pattern.
Distance Performance
Unlike the majority of USB mics I’ve tested, this one does not completely fall apart when held from a distance. This is huge! The built-in mic stands for most devices ultimately prove useless, because they end up being too low and far away from the sound source to produce respectable audio.
Even 2 feet away, the low end remained on the Seiren Mini. At 4 feet away, the sound quality obviously decreased, but it didn’t get completely empty and distant. I still recommend using a boom arm for this mic (as I’ll explain shortly), but a third party stand isn’t absolutely necessary like many other devices.
Background Noise
Background noise reduction was average. I still haven’t tested a mic that surprised me in this area. It does well with computer fans and soft noises like cars rushing by outside a window (when it’s closed). Anything louder than that, and the noise will leak through. The supercardoid pattern isn’t magic. For a particularly obnoxiously loud household, this mic won’t quite cut it.
Plosives and Sibilance
A pop filter and boom arm help this microphone tremendously.
When it comes to plosives (that popping you get from Ps and Bs), the Razer Seiren Mini mic doesn't really stop that very well. This is the first mic I've used in a while where the pop filter actually made a difference. I suggest getting one, but pop filters alone are not much less expensive than boom stands. The Luling Arts microphone boom stand I use comes with a pop filter, and I’ve reviewed it here, but there are many others on Amazon.
Sibilance is the harsh “S” and soft “C” sound that many microphones over exaggerate. The Seiren Mini fortunately does not suffer from this much unless you’re super close up.
Verdict
I recommend the Razer Seiren Mini. I enjoy how the sound is slightly tilted to the low end compared to other common condenser microphones. It excelled in the distance test, and its small form factor and built-in stand complete the portable packpage.
The only real downsides are since it's so compact, it doesn't have a gain knob, mute botton, or a headphone jack to listen to yourself in real time. The idea is you'll be be using it with a computer and you can change the gain there and put headphones into your computer. This mic isn’t for everyone and if you want less bass or need those gain knobs and headphone inputs, check out my Blue Yeti vs Fifine K669B Review.
Razer Seiren Mini Quartz https://amzn.to/37eXS1A
Black: https://amzn.to/2H47ilY
Mercury: https://amzn.to/37bmZlX
