Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware
The appearance of the GAMDIAS Pheme M1 is quite standard compared to many other microphones. The microphone uses a double layer grille. The Pheme M1 is entirely black, aside from a few white accents on the text and symbols. I think it is always safe to go in black or white, as they typically fit well in any setup. The microphone itself is held by a stand. You will find some branding on top of the mute/unmute touch control and gain. The included foam windshield will sit directly on the microphone. This foam is entirely black, so there will not be much contrast here in terms of color. In terms of weight, the whole thing comes in at 373g with the foam windshield, stand, and Pheme M1 itself. This makes the Pheme M1 a decent weight, but will be prone to falling over. You will be able to make gain adjustments without having the microphone topple over, but there will be a very small amount of wiggling. In terms of dimensions, when in the upright position for use, it measures in at 225mm in height, 100mm in depth, and 100mm in width. This is a decently compact microphone and can keep a small footprint on your desk.
Moving on to inputs, there are two areas to go over. Starting on the front side of the GAMDIAS Pheme M1, we have the Mute Mode, ENC Mode, and Super-cardioid for the tap control. The respective color for each mode is red, green, and blue. To switch between ENC Mode on and off, you can hold down on the tap control. To mute, you simply tap it. Below this is the gain, which uses a simple knob that you can twist to increase and decrease the gain itself. Additionally, pressing down the gain will change the RGB lighting setting of the Pheme M1 between its twelve different lighting effects. Six of the lighting effects are different variants of the rainbow wave, and the other six are static colors of white, yellow, green, light blue, blue, and pink.
On the back of the GAMDIAS Pheme M1, we have another knob they call the Streammix dial that adjusts the audio monitoring between your computer and the microphone if you choose to connect headphones to the 3.5mm headphone jack directly below the knob. In my testing, the audio monitoring is pretty functional, but when using ENC, the audio sounds better than it really is. Underneath the headphone jack is a USB Type-C port used to connect to your setup. As for the capsule, the GAMDIAS Pheme M1 is a condenser microphone with a super-cardioid pick up pattern. This records 24-bit audio at a 192kHz maximum sample rate. Inside, we have a 14mm condenser capsule that features a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz. We also have a signal-to-noise ratio of 72dB.
Taking a look at the bottom of the GAMDIAS Pheme M1, you can see the plastic bottom has a ring of foam to dampen vibrations. While the addition is nice, the foam feels a bit stiff, absorbing minimal vibrations and lacks the necessary amount of grip to keep the microphone from sliding on your desk from gentle nudges. This weight seems to be sufficient in keeping the microphone in place when operating the controls. We will see how this foam works out in real-world tests later on. The base is made out of plastic, so it is not the heaviest, but it should be sufficient in keeping the Pheme M1 still in most use cases. If you wish, you can also remove the base and attach it to a third-party mounting arm by using the 5/8” mounting threads on the bottom. Having more metal components in the base would have been nice to add some extra rigidity, but the build quality was sufficient. Otherwise, the microphone’s angle can be adjusted and can even flip upside down to become more compact, given you remove the foam windshield.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Recording Performance Tests
4. Conclusion
