HyperX SoloCast 2 USB microphone review

I'm a sucker for a cleverly-designed object. I'm also a sucker for a good budget gaming microphone, and the HyperX SoloCast 2 manages to be both of those things at once. At $60/£50, it's priced in the same sort of territory as some of the cheap and nasty models you'll find in the listings of many major retailers, but pulling it from the box reveals a surprisingly ingenious little gaming mic.

For a start, it's got such a neat integrated desktop stand, it's kind of astonishing to me that I haven't seen something like it before. Essentially, the SoloCast 2 comes as what appears to be one cylindrical unit with two boom arm screw mounts integrated into the bottom (⅜-inch and ⅝-inch, if you were wondering), making it seem like a standard, stand-less, microphone design. Break it apart like a shotgun breech, though, and it opens to reveal a hidden hinged base roughly one fifth of the way up its frame.

It's a robust hinge, too, which means it's weighted enough in its movement to stay at exactly the angle you set it at in a desktop position, with plenty of mass at the bottom to prevent it from accidentally tipping over. Combine that with some nice plastics, a vented grille, and an all-black aesthetic, and the SoloCast 2 really is a good-looking device to place on your desk.

Ports and controls-wise, it's as simple as it gets. There's a capacitive tap-to-mute button taking up the entire circular top of the mic itself, which means even the clumsiest among us (I'm including myself here) won't miss it. Around the back there's a USB Type-C port, and there's a good-sized LED indicator on the front that glows a subtle red with the mic on, and turns off when muted.

It's a relatively stealthy device, then, and I appreciate that. I've got enough RGB-lit doohickeys on my desk to bring a small aircraft in for landing, so testing something that makes an effort to integrate into my setup without drawing unnecessary attention is a welcome relief.

Although I will admit, assigning a red light to the 'on' configuration does seem more than a little counter-intuitive, and a terrible way for your boss to find out what you really think via a mute-based mistake.

Back to the controls. It's also got… oh wait, I'm finished. Yep, everything else is handled by the HyperX Ngenuity software, for which you currently have to install the beta, as it's a newly-released product that isn't recognised by the standard version. From here you can adjust the gain, configure equalizer settings, and add AI-enhanced noise reduction, compression, and a limiter with simple toggle switches—along with high pass, low pass, and presence boosting filters with similar on/off controls.

On the one hand, reducing all these options down to simple toggles for the most part (other than the EQ and the gain, where you can get surprisingly granular) is a win for sheer simplicity of usage. On the other, I'd like some form of slider adjustment for the noise reduction and the compressor at least, as both can be blunt instruments when implemented with a heavy hand.

In that regard, however, the default configurations are actually pretty usable. As you can hear in the clip below, with AI noise reduction, compression, and the limiter enabled, what you end up with is a fairly natural vocal tone, with a good dose of richness without the warbling horrors of noise cancelling-induced distortion. That being said, the SoloCast 2 is relatively quiet from a desktop position unless you boost the gain up (as I've done here), which results in some background hiss leaking in.

You can also just about hear my partner taking a meeting in the background (in a completely different room of the house) with a shut door between us. I'd appreciate being able to bump the noise cancelling up a notch or two to compensate, but alas, it's merely a take-it-or-leave-it option.

Where the SoloCast 2 is allowed to shine, though, is in close up. The built-in pop filter is remarkably effective, meaning you can absolutely mount one in a close-mic'd position for a more studio-like tone and less unwanted noise with the gain backed down. The capsule here has been well-tuned, and everything surrounding it is solid enough to reject most forms of interference without issue.

Other than that, there's… well, not much to talk about really. It seems very well-made, it's a handsome addition to your desk, and the software manages to tread the line between being simple enough for the everyday user, with just enough control left in the form of the toggles and the EQ settings to keep sound tweakers reasonably happy.

If I was being picky (and I am) I'd appreciate it if some EQ presets were installed by default, but the addition of an "add equaliser preset" option in the drop down menu suggests some may be coming once the software makes it out of the beta stage. As it stands, though, it's all very workable, and there's a lack of fuss to the design that endears me to both the software and the mic itself.

However, I think it's got a small but significant problem in the form of its major competition—the $25 Amazon Basics USB microphone. While the SoloCast 2 has a smarter design and adjustable sound settings (unlike the Basics, which has precisely zero software to fiddle with at all), it's difficult to argue with the Amazon mic for less than half the price.

Sticking the clips side by side, I'd say the HyperX unit sounds richer at a distance in a desktop position, likely due to the software compression and a higher-quality capsule. However, the weak noise cancelling lets the SoloCast 2 down, and while the Amazon Basics unit doesn't have any at all, it is significantly cheaper—which really matters at this end of the market.

Still, the SoloCast 2 is a good budget microphone, and if it weren't for the sheer affordability of the Amazon Basics mic, it'd probably be a candidate for our best budget gaming microphone spot by the virtue of its wider feature set as a whole. It sounds good, it's cleverly-designed, and it's well-priced. It's a shame it's been pipped to the post by an astonishingly-cheap pipsqueak, though, ey?