Visually, it is reminiscent of the wonderful Blue Yeti, which has long been the best microphone for streamers and podcasters. The new pill-shaped design looks stylish and modern, with a simple USB-C plug-in on the back and simple buttons and dials on the front.
Unfortunately, the performance of the Razer Seiren X V2 does not live up to its new look. It is easy to set up and start using, but is not very generational compared to its predecessor. It has a 25 mm condenser inside the microphone head, offering the same frequency response, sample rate and single ‘supercardioid’ polar pattern.
[content-egg-block template=offers_logo hide=price]More to the point, the low base means that unless you lean into the microphone or use a boom arm, the Seiren V2 X will not pick up enough sound unless you turn up the gain, increasing background noise. It is also disappointing that no pop filter is included.
The Razer Seiren V2 X sees a mild spec improvement over the first generation Razer Seiren. The driver is still 25 mm, supercardioid is still the only pick-up pattern and the sample rate is still 48 kHz. However, the bit rate has been upgraded to 24-bit. Frequency response is 20 – 20,000 kHz, sensitivity is 35 dB, but the maximum SPL reaches 120 dB. The signal-to-noise ratio has also been increased from 85 dB to 105 dB.
Thus, the microphone capsule is almost identical to the first generation, but the signal sent to the device should be cleaner and more accurate. If I had to pick one spec to note here, it would be that at a higher SPL, i.e. without fear of distortion, you can produce louder sounds than you could with the first generation Razer Seiren X.
You can adjust the clipping potential a little by playing with the gain knob, but unfortunately it is not very user-friendly. There are no notches or marks at all, and it rotates infinitely in either direction. In practice, however, a small adjustment is all it takes to go from not being able to hear yourself to blowing out the microphone at a whisper. This lack of feedback, combined with the precision that requires excellent adjustment, makes it difficult to find the right gain level for you without a lot of trial and error.
One of the major selling points of the Razer Seiren V2 X is its integration with Razer Synapse. This provides an automatic gain limiter that tries to avoid clipping and a built-in stream mixer that can individually adjust different audio sources that may be used in a live stream.