Published: January 27, 2025 | Source: NZXT | Author: Von Blade

NZXT Capsule Elite Microphone Review

Conclusion

Knowing if something is right for you is always difficult, particularly if you haven’t got an unlimited budget. You don’t want to invest in a Neumann microphone and Neve preamp only to discover that nobody wants to hear your podcast about the life cycle of a cabbage white butterfly. But then if you go cheap you’ll end up with something so hard to use, or of such bad quality, that your enthusiasm will be squashed before you begin.

The NZXT Capsule Elite steps into the sweet spot between cheap and rubbish, and high end, to be a premium USB based microphone solution. The build quality is excellent. In keeping with the Elite name it’s robust and solid. One thing worthy of highlighting is the weight and quality of the base. We know we’ve seen many stands that had the rigidity of wet spaghetti. Additionally the horizontal orientation that has graced the top of these pages requires a sturdy stand. The NZXT Capsule Elite stand ticks all those boxes. It doesn’t wobble, or tip over, or anything.

Easy

This focus on providing the user with a hassle free experience extends to the microphone design. With both headphone and microphone gain controlled by onboard dials, and the LED strip giving a visual representation of the gain setting, it’s really easy to use. This thoughtfulness carries on into the software. It wasn’t that long ago that the NZXT Cam software was reviled by all but the most hardcore fans. NZXT have kept chipping away at it and now it’s pretty much as good as anything. Look at the amount of things you can adjust on the previous page. It’s everything from the simple – lighting colours – to the compressors post-gain setting. Yet it’s all easy to find, and fast to adjust. Big thumbs up.

All of which makes the NZXT Capsule Elite the best USB microphone we’ve yet tested. It’s great ‘out of the box’ and also easy to adapt to your particular idiosyncrasies. Even with a totally untreated room and Mike Tyson’s lisp you’ll still be able to find a usable setup. You’d have to spend easily more than twice the asking price to get anything even a tiny bit better. That 25mm capsule capable of 24-bit/192kHz is really pulling its weight.

The new NZXT Elite range has proven worthy of the name, and we think the Capsule Elite is the best of the bunch, winning it our OC3D Performance Award.