The original Blue Yeti microphone was first released in 2009, and it remains the most ubiquitous microphone for home recording 17 years later. Chances are, if you’ve watched a YouTube video, Twitch stream, or listened to a podcast, you’ve heard (and probably seen) this microphone at least once.

Long after absorbing Blue and phasing out the brand name, Logitech has finally released its highly anticipated successor: the Yeti 2. The follow-up maintains the same general shape and look but drastically changes the microphone’s functionality. Instead of simply recording audio, the Yeti 2 has a handful of features to monitor and manipulate the audio passing through it, seamlessly recording production-quality audio with zero delay. While some of the design feels a bit underdeveloped, the Yeti 2 is a deserving sequel to the iconic original model and an easy shoe-in as the best USB microphone you can buy.

Intuitive Interfaces

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The Yeti 2’s biggest upgrades stares you directly in the face after taking it out of the box. The built-in screen and dial allow for on-the-fly adjustments right on the microphone. No software required. While I was a skeptic at first, I quickly found this little screen to be significantly more convenient than the alternative. It can be used to adjust gain, enable different post-processing settings, and configure the sound profile of the microphone.

More importantly, the screen can quickly provide insights into audio quality at a glance. The main screen shows a graph of the gain-adjusted input volume, which is what the microphone is sending to your computer. It can also display a histogram of volume over time, a pattern to show what direction input is coming from, or … a pixel-art Yeti. This little guy looks confused when you’re quiet, happy when you’re talking at a normal volume, and alarmed when you’re too loud for the microphone to handle. Within the G Hub app, the icons can be swapped out with any of Logi’s other premade avatars (a dragon, flower, frog, or jellyfish), or freely customized with your own images using a simple drag-and-drop menu. This is the least functional feature of the microphone, but it’s an endearing and intuitive way to indicate audio quality at a glance.

The screen also has quite a few adjustable menus for different features, including a de-noise function with four levels, five EQ presets, a pattern customizer with eight default options, and a multitude of toggleable settings to clean up and improve recording quality. While the settings can’t be customized using the screen, the G Hub application provides more in-depth adjustments for how intense each of these settings are, along with explanations of how they work and when to use them.

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The microphone comes with a basic desk-mounted stand in the box, which uses two rubber grommets and a felt panel underneath to isolate it from the desk. While I was initially worried about this picking up resonance from typing, the isolation mount and noise cancellation settings manage to make it sound normal even when placed directly next to a keyboard.

Hanging the microphone from a boom arm definitely doesn’t feel as natural as the stand, but it is entirely possible with the threaded hole on the underside. The headphone jack’s placement on top is inconvenient, and the microphone feels incredibly long when hanging from above. The screen’s display can be flipped 180 degrees, though this means the adjustment knob is now on top of the screen. When using the knob, your hand will likely be in the way of both the display and the proximity sensor, which can be a bit annoying. The microphone is designed to be used with the included stand, but it’s still entirely usable with an arm as well.

Impressively Hands-Off

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The most impressive part of this microphone was how little I had to do when using it, since the automatic settings are so dialed-in. During my entire time with the microphone, I didn’t need to adjust the gain at all. Outside of specifically testing functionality, I didn’t even have any reason to open the Logitech G Hub app. All of the important settings are able manage themselves entirely from the microphone itself.

The automatic gain control on the microphone is fantastic and requires basically no input outside of very fringe instances. The system has a proximity sensor to determine your distance from the microphone, which it then uses to determine the input range and angle. At essentially any distance, I found the microphone to pick up my voice and normalize it to an acceptable volume, albeit with some audio quality degradation at longer distances. Namely, there are some issues with echoing and loss of midrange frequencies, resulting in a more hollow sound overall. But the loss is fairly limited.

Similarly, the noise reduction works fantastically. The de-noiser has four levels total, ranging from “none” to “maximum.” The higher the de-noiser setting is cranked up, the more muted and claustrophobic sound. With the setting at maximum, I was able to place the microphone behind my mechanical keyboard (which is all-aluminum with no foam, meaning it’s LOUD) with zero interference or noise, as opposed to setting the microphone between myself and my keyboard. On the other hand, at lower levels, the microphone was able to completely drown out a quieter keyboard or farther-away background noise with no issues. That’s seriously impressive.

Semiprofessional Quality

Much like the original Yeti, the follow-up uses a cluster of three directional capsules, with the different settings adjusting the relative sensitivity of each. The directional functionality can swap between standard front-facing sensitivity with three degrees (standard, focused, and hyper-focused), 360-degree pickup, and an “interview” mode that listens on either side of the microphone. There’s also an option for Stereo mode, which separates the left and right levels from the front. However, I found that this mode struggled to pick up louder or higher-pitched directional noises, with claps or snaps registering on both sides equally. This is not a huge issue, but ASMR fans beware.

Opening up the microphone, it appears that two of the clusters are facing towards the user at 45-degree angles, while the third is facing away from them. This explains why the stereo mode only works for the half of the microphone facing the user and doesn’t have 360-degree coverage. Besides this, the construction of the microphone is incredibly simple, and the entire microphone can be disassembled in a few easy steps.

Photograph: Henri Robbins

Photograph: Henri Robbins

Comparing to the original model, the Yeti 2 has vastly more built-in tools to actively process and refine audio. The core microphones sound incredibly similar though—even down to the default sound profiles, which highlight the midrange and create an overall “warm” sound. The sound profile can be tweaked to some degree using the built-in equalizer. I did notice that the Yeti 2 has a slightly less bass-y sound during use though.

Every sample I recorded during testing sounded crisp and clear, though I had one consistent complaint. Even without any of the processing sounds enabled, there was still a tiny bit of noise that wasn’t present in other microphones. After experimenting with EQ and settings, it seems this is an inherent part of the microphone’s sound profile. While the Yeti 2 can produce a more clean immediate output with all of its built-in features and processing, it won’t have the same potential for audio quality as some other high-quality microphones.

Ultimately, with its processing, this microphone is going to be ideal for any kind of live interactions or broadcasts. This means livestreams, video calls, and in-game chat will be its bread-and-butter. Similarly, it will be great for someone who doesn’t have the patience and/or technical know-how to edit audio. But if you’re a professional who knows how to do those things, it really doesn’t make sense to choose this microphone over something with a higher ceiling for audio quality, especially since you’re limited to USB-C input instead of having an option for XLR.

The most impressive part of this microphone is the price. A standard Yeti—which is old enough to still use a Mini-USB connection—is $140 from Logitech. Meanwhile, the Yeti 2 is $160. The breadth features gained for $20 is absolutely mind-boggling and makes it an obvious choice for most microphone buyers. It should be noted that the original Yeti is often discounted to as low as $110, which might make the decision between the two a bit more difficult if you’re on a budget.

Personally, I will always prefer an audio setup that doesn’t try to merge everything into one device. My current setup is a separate microphone and DAC, and the ability to customize, replace, and even just physically move around individual components outweighs the convenience of an all-in-one setup. That allows me to fine-tune my setup to exactly how I want to sound. But if you those who want a simple, plug-and-play solution for a fraction of the price, it’s really hard to argue with the Yeti 2.