Microphones
High quality audio is arguably even more important than the quality of video when aiming to convey professionalism and communicate effectively.
The built-in microphones and speakers that ship with most computers are poor to average and a relatively small investment can make a huge difference to how you sound to others in live meetings or streaming and in recordings created for asynchronous viewing.
Developments in AI have led to a number of recent improvements in background noise cancellation (like in Zoom) and voice isolation (in Google Meet) and there are a number of third party software solutions available too. We rate Krisp very highly here and NVIDIA's AI RTX Voice has excellent background noise removal capabilities too (but it does require a NVIDIA graphics card to be installed).
OUR RECOMMENDATION
Rode offer a wide range of affordable high quality microphones. The advantage of the Rode NTG is that you can use it with your camera to record broadcast-grade sound in the field or with your smartphone or tablet for crystal-clear audio on the go, or as a desktop USB mic for podcasting, gaming, voice calls and more. The Rode Wireless Go II is also an awesome and versatile mic solution worth checking out.