Some premium headsets offer great boom mics, but the headphones around them will almost always inflate the price.
Decent recording quality with negligible noise.
Simple setup with basic Windows drivers.
Dark Matter has put some serious effort into its branding.
Stereo mode is great for ASMR.
Omnidirectional is unbalanced and sounds hollow at the sides.
Flimsy USB-C connection protrudes from the port.
Tripod stand dominates a lot of desk space.
Weak construction houses glaring LEDs.
It’s undoubtedly aiming to rival a particular popular USB option, and the test recordings provided surprising results.
Assembling the Sentry tripod desk stand is laughably easy.
The microphone is packaged with a tripod desk stand, USB-C cable, and a user manual.
Monoprice provided a sample for this review but did not see the article’s contents before publishing.
Anyone who knows me will be familiar withmy rampant defense of the Blue Yetiand other USB microphones.
You’ll need a 5/8" thread adapter if you want to use the Sentry with a common 3/8" microphone arm.
The setup process barely exists.
There are no specific drivers and no companion desktop applications either.
It’s not a big deal, but I had to search my junk drawers to find an adapter.
Assembled and ready to connect, the Sentry doesn’t need a companion app to function on Windows.
Appropriately, it was the same thread adapter I used on my old Blue Yeti.
It’s often an appropriate setting for recording instruments, semi-realistically replicating the acoustics of a room.
It simply doesn’t look good at all.
The bare LEDs are harsh on the eyes, especially when you peek over the metallic frame.
There’s nothing to diffuse the lights inside and no way to dim the brightness.
I know gamers are supposed to crave multi-color lighting, but this isn’t the way to do it.
Turn the lights off.
The USB-C cable doesn’t sit flush into the port, poking out by a significant amount.
I’ll never understand why some products can’t manage to fit their ports flush.
Even high-end models give out eventually, but I can’t guarantee how long the Sentry would last.
Saving a little cash on the Yeti Nano allows access to cardioid and omnidirectional polar patterns.
The Blue Yeti range is still among the best-selling USB microphones.
Still, it’s hardly worth the drop without the fantastic stereo mode from the standard model.
Sure, grab it for a close enough experience.
Dark Matter Sentry: Should you buy?
This USB-C powered streaming microphone allows a quick-switch selection between four different pickup/polar patterns suitable to various recording conditions.
The Sentry is built into a metal housing with vibrant RGB lighting and a color-selection switch.
