Best microphones for recording vocals at home under £200

Buy the Rode NT1 5th Generation at £159 if your room is quiet, or a Shure SM58 at £99 if it is not. That second sentence is the one most microphone guides skip, and it matters more than any spec on this page: a condenser hears your room, and most bedrooms are not worth hearing. Under £200 you are choosing between two different tools, and the wrong one sounds worse no matter how much you spent.

Every price below was checked on Thomann UK on 11 September 2026, and the specs against each manufacturer's own page. Street prices at this end move, so treat these as one retailer on one day and look them up again before you buy.

Condenser or dynamic, decided by your room

A condenser is more sensitive and has a wider frequency response. In a treated room that gives you detail and air at the top. In an untreated bedroom it gives you detail, air, the reflection off the wall behind you, the fridge, and the bus outside. A dynamic microphone is less sensitive and rejects more of what is not directly in front of it, which is why it survives a room that a condenser exposes.

The trade is real and it is visible in the specs. Shure publishes the SM58's frequency response as 50Hz to 15,000Hz. A condenser like the AT2020 runs to 20kHz. That missing top octave is the brightness people mean when they say a dynamic sounds darker, and it is also part of why the SM58 does not pick up the hiss of your laptop fan. Our guide to treating a bedroom acoustically covers the other half of the answer, which is fixing the room rather than buying around it.

The shortlist

Rode NT1 5th Generation, £159

The one to buy if the room allows it. Rode rates its self-noise at 4dBA and calls it the world's quietest studio condenser, which on a quiet vocal means the microphone adds nothing you can hear. The part that changes what you need to own is the Dual Connect output: it is an XLR microphone and a USB microphone in one body, so it works into an interface now and straight into a laptop on a day you have not got one. Over USB it records 32-bit float, which means a take that would have clipped can be pulled back down intact.

It also arrives with a shockmount, an integrated pop shield, a Neutrik XLR cable and a USB-C cable. Those are about £40 of accessories you would otherwise buy on top of a bare microphone, which makes the gap to the £79 AT2020 much smaller than the sticker suggests.

Audio-Technica AT2035, £145

The AT2020's older sibling, and the upgrade is switches. A -10dB pad lets you put it in front of a loud source without overloading the capsule, and an 80Hz low cut rolls off rumble at the microphone rather than in the mix. A shockmount is included, where the AT2020 ships with a rigid clip that transmits every desk knock straight into the take. At £145 it sits £14 under the NT1 5th Generation and gives you less, so it is worth the money only if you specifically want the switches.

sE Electronics X1S, £132

The switch set is the most generous here: pads at -10dB and -20dB, and two high-pass positions rather than one. That makes it the pick if you intend to record loud sources as well as vocals, a guitar cabinet or a snare. Worth knowing that the cheaper X1 A, which most older guides recommend, is no longer listed at Thomann UK at all, so the X1S is where that line now starts.

Rode NT1 Signature, £111

The NT1 capsule in a cheaper body, sold in six colours, with 4.7 from 172 ratings. No USB output and no 32-bit float, which is the £48 you are saving against the 5th Generation. Buy it if you know you will always record through an interface.

Audio-Technica AT2020, £79

The default answer for a first condenser and the one our home studio cost breakdown budgets for. A 16mm diaphragm, cardioid, 48V phantom power required, and 4.7 out of 5 from 1,292 ratings. It gives you no pad, no filter and a rigid mount, and none of that stops it recording a releasable vocal. Spend the £66 you saved against the NT1 on a stand, a pop filter and a duvet on the wall behind you.

Shure SM58, £99

5,814 ratings at 4.8 out of 5, and the microphone that has been on more stages than everything else here combined. Cardioid dynamic, no phantom power needed, and 50Hz to 15,000Hz from Shure's own spec sheet. In an untreated room it beats every condenser on this page, because the thing it does not pick up is your room. The cost is gain: a dynamic puts out a far weaker signal, so a cheap interface preamp has to work near the top of its range and you hear its noise floor.

sE Electronics V7, £81

The SM58 alternative, £18 cheaper, with a supercardioid pattern instead of a cardioid one. Supercardioid is tighter at the sides, so it rejects more of the room again, at the cost of needing you to stay in front of it. Sensible if you already know you have a noisy space.

Rode PodMic, £58

Sold for podcasting, and it records a vocal perfectly well. Internal pop filter, built-in swing mount, XLR only on this version. It is a hungry microphone, so pair it with an interface that has real gain rather than the cheapest one you can find. Thomann had it at £58 against a 30-day best price of £63.

Behringer XM8500, £16.80

1,720 ratings, and it costs less than a decent XLR cable. It is not an SM58 and it does not pretend to be, but a vocal recorded on one in a quiet position sounds like a vocal. The catch at the time of writing is availability: Thomann lists it in stock within 6 to 8 weeks, not on the shelf. Buy it as a second microphone or a backup rather than the one you are waiting on to start.

What you also have to buy

A microphone on its own records nothing. Unless you buy the NT1 5th Generation and use its USB output, you need an interface with phantom power for any condenser here, and our interfaces under £150 guide covers that end. One price note: that guide put the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 4th Gen at £149 on 27 August 2026 and it is £166 at the same retailer today, so budget from the current figure rather than ours.

• An XLR cable, from about £8. Nothing on this page except the Rode NT1 5th Generation includes one.
• A stand. A desk tripod is fine for seated takes; a boom stand from around £20 is better because it gets the microphone away from the reflective desk surface.
• A pop filter, £10 to £25, unless the microphone has one built in. Plosives are the single most obvious amateur tell on a home vocal and the cheapest one to fix.
• Phantom power for every condenser here. Every interface in our buying guide supplies it; a USB audio adapter from a computer shop does not.

How to choose

• Do the silence test first. A noisy room makes the dynamic microphones the better buy at any budget, and no amount of money fixes it from the microphone end.
• If your room is quiet, spend up to the NT1 5th Generation rather than across several cheaper microphones. One good condenser covers vocals, acoustic guitar and anything else you point it at.
• Count the accessories into the price. The NT1's shockmount, pop shield and cables close most of the £80 gap to the AT2020 before you have recorded anything.
• Ignore the top end of the spec sheet. Nothing at this price is limited by its frequency response; it is limited by where you put it and what the room does next.