Beyerdynamic has a new studio-grade USB microphone called the Fox. It’s priced at $179, which is competitive with similar products from Blue, Apogee, Rode, Shure, and other companies. The Fox is available for preorder today and starts shipping on July 16th.

Beyerdynamic is marketing the mic towards musicians, sure, but also podcasters, video game streamers, and other users who are looking to step up the audio quality of their work with a plug-and-play device that’s relatively portable. “Speech and vocal recordings, podcasts, and ambitious acoustic performances can be realized effortlessly,” the company says.

The large-diaphragm condenser mic has a built-in headphone jack for monitoring, which is critical if you’ll be doing mobile recording with an iPhone 7 or later. On the front are dials for headphone volume, mix (for balancing the signal between PC/mobile audio and the mic itself), and a mute button. Recording sampling rate goes up to 24 bit/96 kHz.

Included with the Fox mic are a USB-C to USB-A cable, wind screen, and a foot plate to give it nice, sturdy positioning on a table. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem as though Beyerdynamic is also bundling Lightning or USB-C adapters in the box for those who need them, so you’l have to buy those separately. Apogee basically covers all bases with the pack-ins you get with the Mic Plus, so I was hoping to see that flexibility here. Nope. Just the one cable. But if you’re joining the podcast legions and trust Beyerdynamic’s sound reputation over one of this mic’s many alternatives, the Fox might be worth plugging in and trying out.