Shure MV88+Stereo USB Mic

Excellent, versatile Mid/Side Stereo USB microphone

This mic is primarily targeted for smartphone video recording. I was looking for a USB stereo microphone to work with my VR camera, and preferably a Mid/Side one, since Mid/Side can be translated to AmbiX spatial audio quite well (and generally I'm a fan of Mid/Side stereo). I found the MV88+, and it does not disappoint.

For smartphone use, you install the Shure Motiv Audio app to adjust the microphone's settings. Various modes from mono to the widest stereo and also Raw MS are available.

The settings are saved onto the device itself, so the next time you plug it in it will default to those settings. This is very useful with my Teche 3D180VR camera, which can host USB audio devices directly but cannot have apps installed to it.

A Shure Motiv Video app is also available for video recording, it gives you direct access to the microphone and provides audio level meters while shooting. But you can also use the mic with the phone's default camera app, at least this is the case with my Galaxy S22U.

The MV88+ also works great on desktop, as a standard USB audio device. The ShurePlus Motiv app is also available for Windows but apparently not for MacOS.

The mic is solidly built and doesn't necessarily even need a shock mount - the mic housing damps handling noises better than you'd expect. The included winjammer foam ball does a decent job, but you might want to get a 3rd party fuzzy windjammer for better wind protection.

The mic can handle fairly high sound pressure level, but you need to lower the gain plenty for this (the Motiv app has a "band mode" for this particular use case). If the mic still does clip from excess SPL, it doesn't sound terrible, it's just a flat-top saturation.

There is a 3.5mm stereo TRS output for headphones for instant preview. But you can also use it as a line-out if you want to use this mic with a DSLR that only has a 3.5 mm stereo jack input - however you will need to provide the mic with USB power for this use case.

I had occasional connection issues when plugging this mic to my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra - it would disconnect and reconnect constantly when running the Shure Motiv Audio app. This caused problems when updating the firmware of the microphone. I wonder if the connector is broken on either my phone or the mic.