mac.iLounge

The mic in your Mac isn’t made for serious recording, so if audio quality is important to you, a dedicated microphone accessory will make a big difference. Blue Microphone’s new Tiki ($60) has just been released as a smart entry-level choice: not only is it one of the least expensive Blue mics we’ve seen, but the size and technology are impressive too.

Most of Blue’s microphones are cabled, standalone accessories, but Tiki is a smaller, flash drive-styled attachment primarily designed for on-the-go use with MacBooks. Despite the size, it packs two high-quality microphones, which it uses to distinguish voices from other audio sources, using active noise-cancelling to screen out background noise during speech, and automatically mute audio when no one is talking. That kind of performance is ideal for podcasting, Skype, and more, and there’s also a mode optimized for music recording. Tiki can be found at Best Buy right now, and is coming to Blue Microphones’ website and Apple Store starting on July 15, 2012.