Audio-Technica AT2020USB+
A studio condenser with a USB tail and a headphone jack - the microphone that lets a bedroom recordist hear themselves in real time.
Overview
The AT2020USB+ starts from a known quantity: Audio-Technica's own cardioid AT2020 capsule, the large-diaphragm condenser that built the company's reputation in project studios. The "+" in the name is where the interesting work happens. Audio-Technica's own advertising billed it as delivering the sound of the original AT2020 plus a USB output and "design advances for true zero-latency monitoring," and the company pitched it squarely at multi-track music production, voiceover and podcasting, for both instrument and voice pickup.
The A/D converter is high-quality and runs at 16-bit, 44.1/48 kHz. That looks modest next to the 24-bit/96 kHz converters showing up in competitors by the time this mic was on shelves, but it's the resolution most podcast and voiceover work actually ships at. The cardioid pickup pattern handles off-axis rejection, keeping a room's reflections and a computer fan's whine out of the take. What separates the "+" from a plain USB condenser is the monitoring chain. There's a built-in headphone jack with its own volume control, fed by a high-output internal headphone amplifier that Audio-Technica claims delivers superior clarity. A mix control blends the live microphone signal against pre-recorded audio, so an overdubbing player hears their backing track and their new part together without a round trip through the computer. Latency is the thing that makes USB recording feel wrong, and this mic routes around it.
Mix-Magazine (May 2013, p.51) covered the AT-2020USB+ at a list of $279, noting the side-address condenser design, its medium-size capsule, the high-output headphone amp with volume and mix control, and a folding-leg tripod desk stand in the box. The same survey placed it against Behringer's C-1U at $119 — a reminder that the Audio-Technica was never the budget option in the USB condenser bracket. It was the one with the monitoring features and the AT2020 lineage behind it.
One thing for anyone shopping the used market. Audio-Technica's own literature describes the mic as based on the "popular" AT2020, and the company's promotional material for the "+" version leaned on the original's award-winning reputation rather than claiming a new capsule. The plain AT2020USB is a different and earlier model. The "+" is the one with the headphone jack and mix control. The naming is close enough that listings get them confused.
The included tripod desk stand with folding legs gets lost easily and rarely gets mentioned, but it makes the mic usable out of the box on a tabletop. Buyers should expect to find it in a complete package, and its absence is a fair negotiating point.
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