Overall and Final Verdict
For some people, buying the latest and greatest gaming headset is all they will want or need. But if you have a pair of headphones that you prefer, adding in a microphone can be a little more complicated, and expensive. For some a desktop microphone will work, but for me that only really works when you also add in a quality boom and an isolating mount which alone is more than what one of the ModMics costs for most setups, not to mention the microphone itself. Even then, that setup is going to pick up background noise a lot, getting a microphone up near your face helps though and that is where Antlion Audio and the ModMic line have done well and the new ModMic USB 2 and Uni 2 improve on that. With the ModMic USB 2, they dropped the double microphones to focus on one and improved the audio performance of that one. Beyond that Antlion did say they have improved the strain relief, but I will note that the USB 2 does still visually have smaller reliefs than the UNI 2. The ModMic is also removable for times you don’t need a microphone, if I'm not gaming or on a call, it is nice to be able to just run your headphones. Both models also have an in-line mute, but I do prefer the USB 2’s for having a light built-in.
As far as issues in my testing, I still want to see more room to rotate the microphone without doing it in 90-degree increments. That has been one of my complaints for a while now, but the amount of flexibility in the boom itself makes that less of an issue. I also had a little bit of background noise picked up on the UNI 2 that I didn’t experience with the USB 2. I don’t know if that is from our DAC, the wire, or just how it performs overall. But in the end, I was happier with the ModMic USB 2, but either would still be a good option. For pricing the ModMic USB 2 has an MSRP of 89.95 which is $10 more than the original when it launched. Given how much the pricing for everything else has gone up, that isn’t too bad. The ModMic UNI 2 on the other hand is a lot cheaper with an MSRP of $59.95 which is less than the $69.95 that the ModMic 5 was when it came out. I’m still looking forward to the ModMic Wireless 2 and would especially love to see Antlion Audio get into the desktop microphone market as well because I do think that for some people is still the better option. But if you want to use better headphones and have potential background noise, ModMic is still the way to go and Antlion Audio has improved on both the USB and UNI models with the USB 2 and UNI 2.
Live Pricing:
