Overall and Final Verdict
I am really impressed that Razer recognized that streaming and recording Youtube is growing quicker than anyone would have ever thought and they expanded their product lineup to reflect that. The Seiren Pro is clearly focused at people looking to record and not as much the typical gamer crowd that they normally focus on although those two groups overlap with streaming and Youtube. After spending time with the microphone I was impressed with its great audio quality and its heavy duty construction. The video I put together showed just how well it sounds compared to other devices. Sadly I wasn’t able to test against the Blue Yeti Pro that is its direct competition. That said the video did also highlight one of its big downsides as well. Even with settings tuned and using the high-pass filter that is built in you do still have to be more aware of the background noise.
With the Pro model specifically I love that they include an XLR connection option. This opens up a lot of options in the future. For example I can use the Seiren Pro in the office via USB then at our LAN events we can use it via XLR for our streams or even to tap into the event PA. For office use I would be happy with just the one pickup option, but for our event streams it is nice to be able to setup the Seiren Pro for a face to face interview situation or completely omnidirectional for picking up event noise.
I do think that Razer missed out on the chance to put their software to use with this one as well. With just two options that you can already find in Windows there is no reason at all to install the software when using the Seiren Pro over USB. I also found the microphones size to be an issue in my situation, if they could make it shorter It would better fit behind the large multi monitor setups that streamers and gamers are using.
The other issue that concerns me with the Seiren and the Seiren Pro is that they are suspisiously close in features and most importantly specifications to the Blue Yeti and Blue Yeti Pro. In fact so close that I originally assumed that they were working with Blue and just rebranding the Yeti. From what I have heard in the industry this isn’t the case. I wouldn’t blame them at all for aiming to be like the Yeti as it is basically the gold standard when it comes to USB microphones, but even the controls are the same, they could try to change it up a little more.
That said they did succeed, the Seiren Pro is from what we can see statistically on par with the Yeti Pro. On top of that you get a nice screen built into the microphone. The Seiren Pro is also listed for the same price in most locations although right now the Yeti Pro is a little cheaper on Amazon. At just under $250 that is a hell of a lot of money to throw down for a microphone but if you are considering recording videos or streaming good audio quality is well worth the money. For those of you who don’t need XLR, the cleaner pro styling, and the High-Pass filter you can actually save a little money and look at the normal Seiren or the Yeti and still get similar performance. Hopefully with this microphone focus we see Razer bring out a nice pro focused headset with a high end microphone for streamers and gamers like me who just can’t avoid all of the background noise!
Live Pricing: HERE