During Covid I read this post by Matt Mullenweg. It's the most useful thing about mics for meetings I've ever come across.
The TL;DR: how good your mic sounds is mostly a function of how close it is to your mouth. No Bluetooth. The rest follows.
That's why cheap wired earphones can beat the most expensive headphones on the market.
I ran a set of tests with five different mics to hear the difference for myself. Press play on each to compare.
Normal environment
Relatively silent room with uniform fan noise in the background.
Loud environment
Busy co-working space.
My pick: DJI Mic Mini clipped to a shirt for the best voice capture, paired with AirPods Max for listening. Best of both worlds.
Notes
DJI Mic Mini
It's wireless, and has two modes:
- With its USB-C receiver plugged into the computer. A bit of a hassle, but quality is great, on par with wired headphones.
- Bluetooth. I did not even include samples here. Sound quality is notably worse, can't work together with Bluetooth headphones.
- It has an active noise cancelling mode (marked as NC in the samples).
- During all recordings it was clipped on a high collar very close to the mouth.
Rode NT-USB Mini
- You can hook a wired headset into the mic and hear yourself in real time. Sounds weird at first, but it can serve as good training for public speaking. After playing with it I felt much more comfortable on the stage with a mic, hearing my voice blaring from the speakers.
MacBook mic
- In the ideal environment it sounds incredibly well, beats even my favorite DJI Mic Mini. But it's only in perfect silent conditions, which in my case are quite rare.