Elgato Wave:3 Review

Manufacturer: Elgato

UK Price: £159.99

US Price: $159.99

Amazon affiliate link: here

The full review is contained in the video, above, so I urge you to take a look at that. This companion piece offers my brief thoughts in written format.

In today's review, I take a look at the brand-new Elgato Wave:3 cardioid microphone, specifically catered towards content creators. It can either be positioned on a desk via the supplied stand or fitted on a boom arm with an included attachment, depending on preference. It has clip-guard technology, so the worry of levels hitting red and loud noises becoming too distorted are gone. Internally, it has a pop filter that reduces the harsh plosive sounds when talking.

It includes the new wave link mixing software which gives you two independent output mixes and up to 8 channels such as; music, game, voice chat and more, controlled and adjusted easily with the help of Stream Deck integration.

Specifications:

• • Capsule: 17 mm Electret
• • Polar Pattern: Cardioid
• • Resolution: 24-bit
• • Sample Rate: 48/96 kHz
• • Frequency Response: 70 - 20,000 Hz
• • Sensitivity: -25 dBFS
• • Max SPL: 120dB
• • Dynamic Range: 115 dB (Clipguard Engaged)
• • Interface: USB-C
• • Works with: Windows 10 (64-bit)
•  macOS 10.14 or newer

Box Contents:

• Wave:3 microphone
• USB-C cable
• Desktop stand
• Boom arm adapter
• Quick start guide

After using the Wave:3 microphone, here are my thoughts.

It is a premium-quality microphone, internally and externally, and definitely looks the part. It manages to give some really nice voice clarity, helping provide content creators with a studio-quality sounding microphone. Whilst there is some slight background noise present it isn't something that puts me off. Besides, using it with the NVIDIA RTX Voice software removes any of those key presses or mouse clicks when streaming.  

The microphone includes a capacitive mute button that I'm not really a fan of. I feel that if I want to press an important button such as mute, I want to be able to feel me pressing it properly, and hopefully avoid any moments where I could possibly accidentally brush the top and mute it. However, the dial's LED ring does glow red to show that it's muted, which does help.

Having the button/dial on the microphone is good so you can quickly adjust levels without having to go through the wave link software. Levels, channels and outputs and can be changed to suit the occasion. So, for example, as a content creator myself, I like to play story games, so therefore I would have no music playing but have the game volume and microphone level set to average for my audience. However, if a cut-scene were to happen in game, I would like the option to quickly turn the game volume up so we have a better experience and we aren't going to miss any crucial moments, without accidentally increasing microphone volume or going through the awkwardness of messing through loads of different Windows sound settings.  Elgato's Wave Link mixer software helps you achieve all of this and more, even down to your stream's OBS alert levels.

The Good: 

• Premium build quality
• Optional attachment for boom arm
• Studio-quality sound
• Red LED when mute is active
• Clipguard technology
• Wave Link mixing software
• Stream Deck integration

The Not So Good:

• Capacitive mute option
• Background noise and key presses can still be heard slightly