The Blue (now Logitech) Snowball iCE: This mic sounds nice

This audio-capture computer peripheral contains an integrated-transistor pickup capsule and a hunk of metal.

Back in November 2022, EDN published my introductory tutorial on standalone microphones—single- vs. multi-element, electret condenser vs. dynamic (including the associated necessity-or-not of a separate preamp), and analog vs. digital interface (and variants of each)—along with a separate piece on system-integrated mics a couple of months later.

I followed up those conceptual pieces with a USB-interface mic teardown in October 2023. And in both standalone-mic coverage cases, I mentioned (among others) one other USB-interface product, Blue’s (now Logitech G’s) Snowball, two examples of which were in my possession.

The Snowball, which supports both omnidirectional and cardioid pickup patterns, remains on my teardown pile. Stay tuned; it’s supposedly based on dual 14-mm electret condenser capsules, although there’s some controversy here, which I hope to sort out by putting my own eyes on the situation.

What we’re taking apart today is its spherical “little brother”, the cardioid-only Snowball iCE, which comes in both black and white color variants. I’ll start with some stock shots of my black-color ones, one of which I’ll be disassembling (non-destructively, hopefully).

Mine were a $40 (post-20%-off promo discount) two-pack ($20 each) bought from Woot in early 2024. Woot’s posting included a few other stock images I thought you’d find interesting.

Having a ball

While the mics themselves were brand new, their blank-cardboard and scant bubble wrap on-arrival packaging was definitely not retail-grade.

This last shot, along with others that follow it, as usual includes a 0.75″ (19.1 mm) diameter U.S. penny for size comparison purposes.

I’ll start with the “extras”; a modest-but-functional tripod stand that screws into the mic underside, along with a legacy USB-A, to mini-USB cable and a sliver of literature.

Now for our dissection patient. Front:

Left side:

Rear, showcasing the aforementioned mini-USB connector (when’s the last time you saw one of those?) leveraged for both power and digital audio transfer purposes:

Right side, completing the circle:

And, last but not least, the top:

And bottom, showcasing the “adjustable desktop stand” mentioned in one of the earlier stock images (and implemented via a swivel mount in the microphone, mind you, versus anything to do with the stand itself):

For those of you curious about what the sticker circumnavigating the mic says, here are four consecutive segment snapshots for you to verbiage-glue together in your mind.

Severing the sphere

And now to get ‘er apart. In the earlier rear view, you might have noticed what looked like four screw holes, one in each corner. Kudos: you were right. It took me a bit of wading through my screwdriver collection to find one that:

Had the right screw bit tip type-and-size
With a bit that was both narrow enough to fit within the hole and
Long enough to reach the screw heads deeply embedded inside

At that point, I expected the two halves of the sphere to neatly detach. But no. The previously mentioned sticker was still holding them together. There were two stickers, actually, as it turns out; the smaller one communicated device-specific info such as the serial number.

While the larger one handled the two-halves adhesion duties:

After I peeled it off, I thought its underside looked nifty and decided to share it with you, too.

And now the two halves of the sphere neatly detached:

FETalistic

Let’s first look at the moveable mount that fell out when the halves separated.

I trust many of you have already guessed that the red-and-black cable harness still connecting the two halves, which I promptly detached, is for the red LED. It only references the presence (or absence) of power to the microphone, by the way; there’s no integrated mute switch or any other reason for the LED to blink or otherwise communicate status.

There’s a notch in the internal assembly’s PCB that normally slots into a bracket at the inside back half of the microphone. With the two halves detached, the PCB slides out straightaway.

Assembly front view first:

Blue-now-Logitech claims that the 14-mm element is a “custom cardioid condenser capsule designed to deliver clear audio for recording and streaming, providing a significant upgrade over standard built-in computer microphones”. Marketing blah blah blah. Admittedly, it does review well, particularly considering its economical price tag. But its notable (IMHO) aspect, which I came across in my research, courtesy of a blogger who upgraded his, is its silicon integration:

The capsule in the Snowball is a 14-mm electret with an in-built FET that bears a striking resemblance to a JLI-140A-T. It uses a three-wire connection to the mic’s PCB, one each for the FET’s drain and source, and one for gate/ground. This means any electret with an in-built FET with all three pads brought out should work just as well (emphasis on “should”).

The fundamental purpose of the FET (alternatively a vacuum tube in some designs) is for impedance conversion and associated signal gain, thereby rationalizing why one well-known external mic preamp line is branded the “FetHead”. This thread on the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange site gives a nice summary, complete with schematics and a conceptual diagram.

Heavy metal

Now for the left-side perspective:

Normally, when I see a hunk of metal, I assume that at least one of its primary purposes is to act as a heatsink. Not in this case. It just adds “heft” to the Snowball iCE, holding it in place on the user’s desktop (in partnership with the rubber-tipped stand “feet”) and suppressing ambient vibrations from being picked up by the capsule (along with the flexible rubber mount that mates it with the rest of the assembly). Here’s a bottom-side view, further showcasing the “hunk of metal”:

Back to the side views, next of the back of the assembly (with the mini-USB connector obscured by the ever-present penny, apologetically):

And finally, the right side:

Now for the perspective you all care about, that of the assembly-including-PCB topside:

Zooming in on the PCB itself, and after disconnecting the capsule cable harness:

The dominant IC on the landscape, toward the center of the PCB, is (unsurprisingly, given the mic’s digital output) the audio ADC-plus-USB interface device, C-Media Electronics’ CM6327A. This chip also embeds an I²C interface, harnessed in communicating with the Fremont Micro Devices FT24C02A 2 Kbit serial EEPROM in the lower left corner (presumably housing system firmware).

In the spirit of thoroughness, and in closing, let’s take a peek at the PCB underside:

Nothing there that I can discern for test points, solder blobs and traces. In the interest of hopefully preserving mic functionality subsequent to re-assembly, I won’t proceed further with the dis-assembly. Sound off (bad pun intended) with your thoughts in the comments, please!

—Brian Dipert is the associate editor, as well as a contributing editor, at EDN.

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