Elgato Wave DX Dynamic XLR Microphone
design
Elgato has established a really familiar design style over the last few years and the Wave DX looks right at home, it’s refined and reserved with a minimum of fuss but plenty of grown up charm. There’s no flashiness here, available in black or white you’ll find a monochrome body with an inverted logo acting as the only break up.
The Elgato Wave DX is a surprisingly small unit, if you ignore the mounting joint on the side the entire body is less than 15cm long and just 5.3cm across, making it an excellent option for tighter setups. The hardened steel chassis feels particularly premium for the price point and gives the Wave DX a reassuring amount of weight. It’s not as beefy as something like a RODE PodMic though and nowhere near heavy enough to cause a problem for even cheaper mic arms.
That’s a good thing too, because with no stand included in the box and no way to prop up the Elgato Wave DX on its own you’ll need to invest in a boom arm. The mono swivel mount point offers nice clearance so should be universally compatible and Elgato do include a couple of thread adapters, but it’s an added expense to make sure you consider when shopping.
The mounting point on the Elgato Wave DX can be removed and swapped to either side of the microphone which offers a nice layer of bonus flexibility when it comes to working it into your setup. You can even swap and rotate the Elgato logo to keep it the right way up for your viewers on stream, if repping the brand is your kind of thing.
Hidden inside the Elgato Wave DX is an integrated pop filter which while better than nothing, didn’t perform as well as external pop filters I’ve tested on other microphones. This is only heightened if you increase your proximity to the mic looking for that deep podcast sound which a lot of people will want from a dynamic microphone. The fixed mounting arm means there’s also no way to shock mount the Wave DX and it ends up very exposed to desk bumps and knocks to the mic arm. Whether this is a problem will likely depend on your use case, but it’s something to consider.
performance
Microphones are one of the more adaptable parts of a streaming setup, two different streamers may generate completely different sounds from the same hardware. Different microphones with the same specs on paper can often arrive tuned in completely different ways to with very unique sounds as a result. That’s not the case with the Elgato Wave DX though which does a remarkable job at sitting on the fence, it’s the vanilla ice cream of microphones; but that’s a good thing.
With the Wave DX, Elgato has engineered a dynamic microphone that doesn’t insist on reminding you it’s a dynamic microphone. The sound is clean and full but doesn’t go over the top with that intensely close late night radio sound. Out of the box there’s a brightness to vocals on the Elgato Wave DX and overall it sounds a little sharper and crisper than some other dynamic microphones I’ve tested.
Microphone etiquette is an important consideration as the Elgato Wave DX does a good job of ignoring off axis and general room sounds. This is great for filtering out unwanted distractions like mechanical keyboard clacking but will also harm the voice quality of those streamers who forget to address the microphone properly. If you’re a particularly animated streamer who moves around their space a lot and gets lost in their gameplay, it might be better to explore a condenser option. The flip side though is the Elgato Wave DX also goes some way to accommodating less than ideal setups, ideal for streamers with no acoustic treatment in their space.
As you’d expect the Elgato Wave DX works perfectly with the rest of the Elgato ecosystem, integrating natively with the Elgato Wave Link software and Stream Decks. Wave Link offers intuitive control of EQ adjustments and while the out of the box sound is strong it’s worth taking five minutes to have a play around. Paired with something like the Stream Deck Plus unlocks a nicely granular level of control, using the controllers four dials for playing with input levels is a smooth and logical experience.
summed up
For streamers chasing a high quality dynamic XLR microphone the Elgato Wave DX is a great choice at an accessible price. For £109 (and often found on sale for below £100) it delivers strong audio performance in a premium feeling package
It’s hard to beat the Elgato Wave DX when it comes to a pure price for performance match up, combined with the rest of the Elgato ecosystem it’s an excellent choice.
