Elgato Wave Mic Pro vs Rode PSA1+ Boom Arm Battle

Apr 17

I’ve tested and used a lot of podcasting equipment at this point in my career.

Before I was a podcast producer, I was a musician, so the love of gear runs deep. Anything that I can get my hands on that is going to improve the sound or the functionality of my setup is something I get very excited about.

I also feel like at this point I’ve learned the difference between good and great and I’m quite partial to a gear battle.

So here we are. We’ve got two microphone boom arms in the arena that I have rigorously tested. The Elgato Wave Mic Arm Pro and Rode PSA1+. They’ve both been tested in the studio here at Bamby Media HQ, and out on location in various recording environments. I’ve narrowed the battle down to a few key areas that are worth taking into consideration.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s begin.

Aesthetics and Design

The visual impact of your setup matters, especially when you're recording video content or streaming. The Elgato Wave Mic Arm Pro immediately stands out with its thoughtful approach to visual discretion. Its low-profile design seamlessly integrates into any professional setup, becoming nearly invisible in the best possible way. It complements rather than competes with your microphone, creating a clean, professional appearance that works from any camera angle.

The Rode PSA1+ takes a markedly different approach. While the build quality is undeniable, the prominent branding creates an immediate visual distraction. The bold white logos feel like uninvited guests in your carefully crafted setup, so much so that I found myself modifying mine with custom elements just to maintain a professional appearance. I’ve already bought the product Rode - I don’t need your branding front and center in all my videos forevermore.

Cable Management

In professional audio production, cable management isn't just about aesthetics - it's about reliability and longevity. Elgato's magnetic system proves revolutionary in daily use, providing secure cable routing without creating stress points or requiring constant readjustment. The metal plates hold firmly while allowing for easy modifications when needed.

Rode's approach to cable management reflects a more traditional mindset. Their plastic clips that run along the top of the boom arm secure cables effectively but perhaps too aggressively. During long production days, the tight grip becomes a concern, particularly when repositioning is frequently required. The system works, but it feels like a solution from yesterday rather than tomorrow.

Sound Performance

When it comes to professional audio recording, unwanted noise can destroy an otherwise perfect take. The testing revealed some unexpected results in this category. The Rode PSA1+ demonstrates impressive stability against desk vibrations, though it's not entirely silent during adjustments. The subtle creaking during repositioning isn't ideal, but it rarely interferes with actual recording when properly handled.

The Elgato presents an interesting trade-off. While it remains whisper-quiet during movement - a crucial feature for live streaming and dynamic recording sessions - it's more susceptible to desk vibrations than expected. This isn't a deal-breaker, but it's something to consider when planning your studio setup. If you bang on your table a lot during recording, you might find that the Elgato Wave Mic Pro isn’t quite right for you.

Setup and Installation

The initial setup experience often sets the tone for long-term usability. Elgato's engineering shines through with their wider clamp base design, offering genuine versatility for different desk configurations. The thoughtful approach to adjustability means you can optimise your setup regardless of your workspace constraints or recording requirements.

Rode's traditional mounting system is reliable and sturdy, reflecting their years of industry experience. However, I found the base of the clamp to be a little too small. It made it harder to mount on different desk setups (especially if there was a particular small lip at the base of the desk). Rode does ship with the desk mount that allows you to screw straight into your table, but I don’t know too many content creators that want to go that far and modify their desks. While it gets the job done, it feels like a missed opportunity for innovation in an otherwise premium product.

The Branding Issue

In professional content creation, every visual element matters. Elgato clearly understands this, incorporating their branding with remarkable restraint. The subtle approach allows your content to remain the focus, demonstrating a clear understanding of creators' needs.

Rode's decision to prominently display their branding creates an ongoing challenge for content creators. As I’ve mentioned above, the bold white logos become an unavoidable visual element in your setup, forcing creators to either embrace or find ways to conceal them.

The Final Verdict

After extensive testing in real production environments, the Elgato Wave Mic Arm Pro emerges as the superior choice for professional content creators. While both arms competently handle their primary function of supporting microphones, Elgato's thoughtful design choices, superior cable management, and creator-first approach to branding make it the more complete package for modern content production.

The Rode PSA1+ remains a viable option as it’s cheaper for creators working with fixed setups or those primarily focused on audio-only content where visual considerations are secondary. Its superior vibration control might also make it preferable in certain specialised recording situations.

Full disclosure: Elgato sent me this Wave Mic Pro but all opinions are my own. They did not instruct me to make a video, an article, a podcast episode. They have had no input into my decision to battle or review this product. I purchased the Rode PSA1+ myself. No sponsorships influenced these findings - just real-world experience from hours of professional use.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Why do I have two microphones in my face right now? Bit weird. It's because I am battling two boom arms, not two microphones, two boom arms. We are going to battle the Elgato low profile pro boom arm versus the. Rode PSA one plus boom arm on these boom moms. We have decent sized mics. We have the S SE DC M eight, which is my favorite microphone.
I've done a bunch of battles with this microphone. Oh my God, I love it. It's a great microphone. Then we have on the PSA one plus the Sure MV seven plus. I have not reviewed this microphone yet. You are not hearing the audio from this. You're hearing the audio from this, the DCM eight. So for now, that is what's going on.
We're going to assess them based on, I think, what is the key factors for a boom arm to be something that [00:01:00] is worth using. Worth your time. Number one, the actual. Look of these boom arms, because to me that's actually fairly important, especially if you're gonna be on camera like I am. You wanna make sure that not too much of your frame is taken up by a big old boom arm.
You know, you've already got a microphone, which is, in this case pretty hefty.
Just the microphone itself is quite hefty. So to have a boom arm also in the shot is a little bit annoying so we've got a lot of room either side. We don't have anything up the sides.
It's low profile. The microphone's coming up from the bottom. The microphone's the thing. That's the biggest thing. But this is also like a podcast. This is a podcasting channel. I want a really good microphone, nice and close to my mouth. So that's the decision that I've made on purpose as far as the actual boom arm, how it's looking on camera.
You can barely see it. And what you can see is seamless with the black of the microphone and then the black of the actual design of the [00:02:00] Elgato boom arm. So I am very pleased. This is an A for me. Big tick, a plus for how much space. This actually takes up in my frame. Now my frame is a smaller frame. If you were doing a podcast and you had like a panel discussion and you have lots of people and you need a lot of space and you're obviously having a wider shot, you're gonna see more of the boom arm, but it's still low profile enough that it's not
bringing attention to itself. It's sleek. The design is really just minimal, and I love that. I love, love, love that. So now I've just switched to the Shure MV7+, the microphone. Okay, we've got more in the actual frame here. I personally think that the Elgato wins because this one has more of it in the frame, and I can't avoid this like Rode branding either. In fact, something I did do on the other side of this Rode, boom arm was I actually super glued a [00:03:00] Lego base.
Onto the section where this Rode bit is so that I could put some Lego people on it and make it more branded to me instead of like, Hey, here's Rode. I'm representing Rode. Look at all the Rode things I have. I do really love Rode. Okay Rode is a great company, but I don't want a massive Rode symbol in all my videos all the time.
So that's something that I had to do to minimize that. So from a way that it looks on camera. Rode you lose. This is like a CI think. Let's switch back to the Elgato now. Next thing we're gonna take a look at is cable management. So this is important too. The cable management factor for the Elgato is really quite cool.
Elga Ddo has metal plates. Are magnetic that actually help the cable stay in place. So you run your XLR cable inside, basically the boom arm, and then you put these metal plates [00:04:00] on top to keep it all in there and keep it from moving. So I'm gonna put it back in. Okay. You heard that click, it clicks into place.
It's super strong. The magnets are super strong other versions of this boom arm. Apparently the magnets were a bit like, you know, loose and they didn't perform all that well. That's not the case with this one. The magnets are fantastic. So from a cable management point of view, I mean certainly in this case for my frame.
If you can't see anything. It's never a problem. It doesn't crunch the cable at all, and it's easy when you're moving out of the way. It's not actually hurting the cable as well. So another A for Elgato for this cable management.
You've done a fantastic job. Now let's switch over to the Rode version so that you can get my thoughts on that. You're probably getting a little bit of a review of how these two microphones sound as well. So cable management for the Rode, PSA one plus this particular boom
arm has [00:05:00] these little clips that are part of the fabric where you can run your cable down it, and then down all the way to the bottom of the actual. Boom arm they're fine. The clips are fine. They work quite well. The only thing I will say is that once you kind of attach them, right, the cable can't move very much because they're clipped in to the stand.
And so when you're moving the stand around. Uh, I just, I don't like what it's doing to my actual cable itself. It's a little bit too tense. I can give it more slack in the, you know, the way the cable is running through. But then I've got like bits of my cable that are up like this because there's more slack.
Uh, and then sort of it's defeating the purpose of there being some sort of cable management system there for it. So although it's, it's okay, uh, I don't love it,
so Rode cable management is, okay, I'm gonna give you a B for this, [00:06:00] but it's just not as good. It's not as good as the Elgato. It's not as sleek. I can still see the cable. Doesn't look as good. I'm gonna tell you that. So next thing we wanna take a look at is the sound that these boom arms make. So if you're a streamer or someone that like moves your microphone around a little bit on the boom arm, how much noise is that giving in the actual audio that you are, you know, recording?
So let's do a little bit of a test. So I'm gonna move this around a bit.
Can you hear that creaking?
So the creaking is like the fabric with the cable. It's not actually coming so much from the actual standard self.
Yeah, but it [00:07:00] is there. Okay. So there is definitely a creaking sound. Now what about if I'm like touching, banging the table? How much of that is being transferred into the microphone?
Hmm. So it does a quite a good job of not transferring the desk noise through the stand into the mic. All I'm hearing there is the actual microphone picking it up from the desk. It's not being transferred through the actual boom arm itself. That's a good thing. Ah, I can't be sure what I wanna give this yet until I get the Elgato one in.
So let's get that one in. Okay. Now we have the elga back in. I just swung it back in.
Man that's silent. As far as there are no C creeks. I cannot hear any c creeks from the actual stand itself. I can push it out of the way very easily, but in saying that, when I move this, [00:08:00] the sound from the stand is being transferred into the microphone. Like, I can hear that sound a lot more just pushing on it.
I couldn't really hear any movement in the Rode. I can hear quite a lot in the Elgato. It's like it's a more hollow sound and then when I hit on my desk, mm, I'm getting sound transference. Obviously. I can hear the hitting and the typing. I can hear that. From the mic, but I can also hear the transference through the actual stand itself.
So in saying that, Ooh, this is a, this is a tricky one because I think for streamers and stuff like that, if you can actually hear those, there's like this little sound if you can hear that. That's not great. So I think that maybe even though the Rode has [00:09:00] some creaking, the transference of noise into the mic will mean that the Rode wins on this one because it's not picking up so much of the transference from the actual table into the microphone itself there.
So Rode, you win on that. Let's give Rode a b. Yeah, let's give Rode a B on this. 'cause it's not an A, like it's creaky. Let's give the Elgato, let's give it a B minus. I don't think it's a C. It's a B minus. So that means Rode you win this round of noise for your boom arm in saying it. I think that, you know, that doesn't weigh into my decision as much because once I have my microphone in place, uh, as long as I'm not like banging my table
too much. That doesn't really matter because it'll be in place. I won't really be moving it all that much at all. So it doesn't weigh into my decision as much as the other things too. [00:10:00] Now, if we look at things like setup, so the setup is pretty much the same kind of deal. They both come with the attachments to be able to screw it
onto the desk like with a clamp so that you can just clamp it on really easily. The Rode, PSA one plus did come with a actual like mount thing. That means that you could screw into your table if you wanted to. Not using the clamp then, and actually just have it screwed into the table. The Elgato did not come with that.
I don't know how useful really that is having that extra bit that you can like screw into the table and attach there because I'm a person that wants to move things around. Uh, you know, I wanna change my desk setup. Certainly we are on location, we're recording other people, we're recording our clients at
all these different places. So we need the clamp system more than we need something that actually screws into a desk. So it's a nice feature, but again, of shmeh, you know that that's a shmeh for me. If that's something you really need, then the [00:11:00] PSA one plus is gonna be your winner in that regard. But yeah, both have a similar system that just screws into the desk.
I do find that the Elgato screw system, though, uh, it's a wider base, it clamps easier, it can clamp on more things more easily. The PSA one plus is a smaller clamp. The actual section that grabs is a lot smaller, and so I found that more challenging. I believe that the Elgato wins for its clamp system, the way the setup works there.
The other thing in the setup that I really like about the Elgato is that it actually has a bit of customization in it. You can actually. Like take a bit of the stand away and then just have one section, not the two big sections. Meaning that if you don't need it to be a super long stand, you need it to just be shorter.
You want it to come up in a different way, then you can do that. If you don't have a very big space, that's awesome. You can customize it more. I really like the fact that you can do that. With the Rode you can't [00:12:00] customize anything. You can position it in a bunch of different places because of its like.
You know, it's super, it can go super long it's pretty massive, like if you're trying to customize and get it to the place it wants to be, and it's this huge, big sort of arm thing in the way. I don't love that. It's a pretty big profile. It's definitely not low profile from a setup perspective.
So I'm going to say that Elgato wins for setup because of the better screw mechanism. For screwing onto desks, and also the fact that you can customize it more. So we're gonna give the setup with the Elgato and A, we're gonna give the Rode probably, I mean, it's not terrible. This is still a very good boom arm.
Let's go with a B, because the functionality with the screwing into the desk is a little bit worse. And then also the fact that it's not that customizable with the actual setup itself. Another big factor for me, and it's something I already mentioned, is the fact that this Rode branding drives me absolutely nuts.
It's like, look, [00:13:00] Rode. I've already bought the product. Okay? I've already like your products. Thanks. I don't need you to be advertising on every single one of my videos. Because you got this giant branding on it, so I don't like that at all. That to me is a d feature of this boom arm.
'cause you can't remove this easily. I've had people like, you know, on YouTube videos showing how you can like scratch all this off and then it looks kind of bad. Like, anyway. I hate that feature of the boom arm. So you're getting a D there man. Uh, and then the boom arm for the Elgato. There is like the smallest amount of branding, you can't even see it on my setup. Elgato not shoving their branding down your face. And that to me is a big deal for how I want my videos to look. I just want my videos to represent me, to not represent other things that aren't sponsors, and then all of a sudden they're there on my thing because there's this big bit of branding there.
[00:14:00] So Elgato, you definitely win here. You have done a really great job of just providing something that a consumer wants. That's an A for that. Rode big down marks for yours and a d I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, but I have to give you the honest truth on this because it's important. And as I said, I love Rode products.
I have a bunch of Rode microphones. I have one sitting right here. You know I got the Rode Wireless Micro. I haven't reviewed that yet. I've got so much Rode stuff. I don't need your branding all over my things. The other thing I'll mention is the actual like weight of a microphone and how the boom arm handles both of these.
Boom arms handle heavier microphones versus lighter microphones. They both win here. There's no issues with either of them. I have put so many different microphones on this boom arm, the Rode. PSA one plus, it has never been an issue. The suspension that it has in place here, it's never [00:15:00] drooped. There's never been any issues withholding any microphone at all.
Similarly, for the Elgato, this again has not been an issue with any microphone that I've put on this stand. It also has a section where you can actually tighten your stand as well, using an Allen key. So. If you do have a heavier microphone and it's kind of drooping, then you just get the Allen key that's included and you just tighten it up and then there's absolutely no problems.
So both of the stands function as they should with any microphone you can adjust them. Some microphones are heavy, some are light. I have not had any issues a for both of you there. So who wins? We've got the Rode PSA one Plus, and we've got the Elgato Low Profile Pro. It's pretty obvious who wins based on the things that I've said.
The Elgato has provided a better product. In so many ways, this is a better product than the PSA one [00:16:00] plus. The PS A one plus has been out for a while. Maybe Rodes working on some sort of other competition to the Elgato Pro. But to me, just go buy this.
Boom, mom. It's a really good boom Mom. You can get it on Amazon. There'll be a link in there. It's about, for Aussies, it's 299 a UD. You're looking at about 180 something US dollars. It's not gonna break the bank. It's gonna last you a really long time. There are no issues with it. I love it. I'm so happy that Elgato has sent me this boom arm.
Funny story with that too. We went out and we did an on location in store for a client. I. Where we bought a bunch of gear. We advised them what they needed. They had a budget. We adhere to that budget, and then we came with the gear that we bought for them. We set it up at their location. If you're in Australia, that is something that we can absolutely do and provide.
Just reach out and let us know. Thing was is that I brought some other things with me that I thought potentially the client might need, and one of them was a boom arm that wasn't [00:17:00] in the initial invoice that I'd sent through. She wanted it. She purchased that boom arm. That was great. But the problem I then had was I was down a boom arm and I was like, damn, I'm gonna need another boom arm
now. I was at the washing line and I was thinking to myself, ah, I should get one of the Elgato low profile boom arms, because I've been wanting to try that out. And then literally the next morning I got an email from partnerships at Elgato saying, Hey, would you like some boom arms to test and see if you like them?
And I was like, yes, that's, uh, that's, I exactly need that. It was like I manifested some boom arms and I hate the word manifesting. I like, I hate manifesting as a whole, like, um, manifesting, but I really did manifest a boom arm from Elgato. So thank you Elgato for being on the same wavelength as me, and pardon the pun on that one, and then giving me a boom arm.
I'm so happy [00:18:00] with this. I really recommend everyone buy it. I have not been told to say anything. I have not been told to tell you to buy this boom arm. I just love it. I really think it's a very good product. So yeah, I hope you enjoy it. That's it for me today for this battle between the Rode, PS A one plus WA and the Elgato low profile boom arm.
Only thing I will say that's a long name. Maybe work on some smaller names for your boom arms in future. If you like this stuff like it, subscribe it. I'll be back. Bye.