In terms of price, th🐭e Joby Wavo POD sits within a competitive bracket of just under £100. There are a host of other mics available at th🌳is level, and choosing between them feels like wading through a sea of marketing jargon. There are offerings from Rode, HyperX, and Audio-Technica, to name a few of the bigger guns, so where does this snazzy little microphone with its red plume and basic set-up fit in? We ran two tests: one as a podcast microphone and one alongside recorded gameplay, compared to a similarly priced microphone, the HyperX QuadCast. Here’s what we thought of the Wavo POD.
This USB mic with options for Cardioid or Omnidirectional patterns is posited as a “gateway” microphone for podcasters and streamers. It’s lightweight, has a handy fitted bright-red pop filter for pl🐎osive sounds, and is extremely simple to set up. This is definitely a plౠug in and go type of microphone, and to get the most out of it, you’ll probably want to mess around with a few audio filters in your recording software of choice. For this review, we tweaked the microphone in OBS until we found it mainly went toe-to-toe with our HyperX QuadCast, which falls under a similar price bracket. The Wavo POD is marginally cheaper, mind.
That being said, the Wavo POD doesn’t sound quite as good out of the box as the QuadCast, though the difference is admittedly pretty small. This was mostly because the POD didn’t pick up the deeper notes of my voice, but my voice was clear and sharp regardless. You won’t get the same richness of sound as an XLR mic or one that you’ve properly tweaked🌳 in your software, but that🐓’s to be expected for an affordable mic. In terms of build quality, the Joby microphone feels sturdy enough, but the pop filter feels much more flimsy. The filter itself is metal, but it’s attached to the mic with plastic. This can be removed and replaced very easily if it bothers you. However, you will want to use a pop filter with this microphone, as more sibilant sounds are picked up pretty sharply. One thing that confused me at first was adjusting the gain. I’m used to USB microphones having two separate dials for changing the gain and adjusting the volume of the microphone or headphones attached. The Wavo POD combines these under one function: press and hold the middle button to switch the dial from volume to gain. You shouldn’t have to adjust the gain all that much, but if this is something you need to do on the fly, this complicates the process just a little bit.
I was impressed with the variety of mounting options for the microphone, for the whole range of a 1/4’ mount’, 3/8” universal mount, and a 5/8’ universal mount. This is really neat because it means you can chuck the Wavo POD on almost any arm or mount you have, making shopping around for one much easier. Alongside the microphone, I w🍃as sent the Wavo Boom Arm, which is sturdy, decked out in stylish black and red, and easily supported the weight of the POD - the arm is capable of supporting a weight of up to 1kg. This will now be my everyday mic arm.
Overall, the Wavo POD is a very suitable microphone for someone considering entering the podcasting or gaming content creation rat race. It’s affordable, takes🎉 very little time to set up, and can be attached to pretty much any mounting🌠 arm. That being said, there are several mics available in this price range, and it might pay to do some more general research and consider some of the other options before making a decision.