I found the cardioid pattern very clear sounding with very little room sound and outside noises being picked up. Omni was better when I had others participating with me here in my studio for a Zoom conversation. All are heard well by everyone on the call but it's best to get close in on the ARA too.

The ARA has a clean look on camera too. It is very much like an AKG C-414 studio condenser except the pattern switch and playback volume are small controls knobs right on its front. The mic's body rests in a gimbal mount like a studio mic with cables connected to the USB-C jack (USB-C to USB-A cable included) and 3.5-mm TRS headphone mini-jack coming out of the bottom.

You can "hang" the mic on a boom or any pro stand because both the mic and base use standard 5/8-inch threading. In addition, a 3/8-inch to 5/8-inch adapter is also included. The included base is a solid disc big and heavy enough to offer stability wherever you find room for it on your desktop--it also has a non-slip base.

Sound quality is superb--exactly as I expect from an AKG microphone. A big reason is that 96kHz/24-bit A/D conversion is used and I found the mic to be able to handle very loud sound as well as quiet speech without noise. I liked the direct monitoring for checking myself at the same time as what is coming back from the Zoom app.

I think the AKG ARA is a big winner and can highly recommend it immediately for live-streaming, video conferencing and music recording applications. Its sells for $99 MSRP!

www.akg.com/Microphones/Condenser%20Microphones/AKG-C22-USB-LS.html