Expensive Podcast Setup Tested Against Budget Gear

I’m podcast award-winner and filmmaker Hank Davis. How wide is the sound quality gap between a fifty dollar podcast mic and interface setup and thirteen hundred dollars worth of gear? In this video I compare pro vs budget podcast gear. I pair the Behringer UM2 audio interface with the Behringer XM8500 microphone vs the Lewitt LCT540S microphone and the RODECaster Duo audio interface. Is this the case of the law of diminishing returns? AFFILIATE LINKS: RODECASTER DUO: https://amzn.to/45ZRBSp LEWITT LCT540S: https://amzn.to/4pwZOXG BEHRINGER UM2: https://amzn.to/4qEWDOO BEHRINGER XM8500: https://amzn.to/3YytBo4 This video is about "pro vs budget podcast gear" -best podcast setup for beginners -budget podcasting setup -budget podcast setup In one corner we have the RODECaster Duo coming in at $500 and the Lewitt LCT 540S coming in at $800 for a total of $1300 (not including mic cables and headphones because they are included free in most cereal boxes). In the other corner we have the Behringer UM2 at $33.90 paired with the Behringer XM8500 which costs just $13.90 for a total of just $47.80. While the goal is to get as close to that “polished” sound as possible, sometimes you get what you pay for. I’ll provide both unprocessed and processed sound samples. Here I am on the RODECaster Duo and Lewitt LCT 540S combination and this is what it sounds like. I love this particular setup and use it for my monthly Podcast Gear News show. I’ve received plenty of compliments on the sound quality. Now it’s time to switch over to the budget setup and see how it stacks up. Now I’m on the Behringer UM2 and the Behringer XM8500 and this is what it sounds like. While it’s not going to knock anyone’s socks off, I’m confident you could get away with this combo for podcasting, especially if you were going to do some post-production on your content. I’m going to kick on the processing of the RODECaster Duo and then do some light post-production. Back on the RODECaster Duo with some onboard processing combined with a little more post-processing and here’s what we get from this combination now. How do you like the polished sound of this setup? Be sure to let me know in the comments. Lastly, I’ll put in a little heavier sweet equity on post-production for the Behringer combo to see how close we can get to this sound. Back on the Behringer setup and this is what I came up with for a completed post-production sound. I got pretty aggressive with the compression in order to try to trick your ears into thinking the sound is better than it actually is. Heavier compression can be fatiguing to listen to along with added low-end bass, but it’s one of the tricks used by audio editors to get that finished sound. At the end of the day, it only matters what your ears perceive so whatever setup you have is the setup that will have to do for the content you're creating. I thought this would be a fun experiment and it’s been on my to-do list for over a year. Thank you for taking the time to watch. Please subscribe to the channel and like this video. And as always, Thank you! 00:00 Intro - RODE RODECaster Duo & Lewitt LCT540S Unprocessed 01:30 Behringer UM2 & XM8500 Unprocessed 02:13 RODECaster Duo & LCT540S Processed 02:39 Behringer UM2 & XM8500 Processed 03:29 Final Thoughts