It sounds like the setup to a punchline: A strapping young Mac mini, a yoked gaming PC and an elderly Power Mac G4 walk into a podcasting primer. Then what happens?

Well, if we’re talking about Redditor omgaporksword’s recent setup post, you learn a few OS-switching tricks, share some old-school Mac nostalgia and see how to position your USB microphone using a boom arm.

There is no punchline and there are no laughs. But please, people. Not everything is about humor. Except maybe omgaporksword’s Reddit handle.

A lot of folks eagerly await new MacBook Pro models, preferably with updated M1 chips. You know, the ones not introduced at WWDC as predicted? In the meantime, plenty of people are snapping up the affordable and reportedly fabulous M1 Mac mini. We’ve seen it over and over again in our far-flung travels among Setups online.

Web developer LincHayes recently showed off the M1 Mac mini-and-PC-based setup he put together to restart a live tech support business and do some podcasting. It did not fail to impress lots of folks on Reddit.

After all, this is LincHayes’ first time as a Mac owner. And a lot of people relate to running both Macs and PCs in a complex, multifunctional setup with a lot of moving parts.

Redditor Liquidsama’s setup is popular on the social media app not just for the adorable Pac-Man Ghost Light in the corner (see photos), but for its awesome computing power for work and play.

The LED ghost light phases through nine colors and reacts to music, by the way — which is neat — but the real draw here is a bulked-up Mac Pro for IT work and a heavily modded PC for gaming. Not to mention a great audio rig for podcasting.

Rocky Lira, aka “Rocky Bandit,” and his “knucklehead” friends Eddie and Paddy went big into podcasting on a moderate budget recently. And they have the gear and the podcasts in circulation to show for it.

He and his Chicago pals started the weekly show Bums of Manarchy for fun, recording more than a dozen episodes so far. Lira got off to a fast start handling the podcast editing and production. He said he uses an M1 MacBook Pro and an older model, along with two iPad Pros and his iPhone 12 Pro — in concert with a Rode RodeCaster Pro Integrated Podcast Production Studio console.

If most UltraWide monitors are impressive, then a 49-inch UltraWide is jaw-dropping. That is just the start of programmer Justin Chau’s amazing setup, which took years to assemble. Above his 49-incher, he has a 32-inch Dell S Series Monitor, which gives him an insane amount of screen real estate.

An ultrawide curved monitor takes any setup to the next level, and Cesar Azaustre’s MacBook-powered rig is no exception. It took a three-year span for the Spanish front-end engineer to assemble this setup — and it does not disappoint.

To control things on his massive $800 screen, he uses the Apple Magic Keyboard and the Logitech MX Anywhere wireless mouse. For Zoom meetings, he leans on a Logitech Pro Stream Camera and a Røde microphone, both top-of-the-line products.

An epic screen is the hallmark of any great setup, and Gary Dee’s video-editing suite is certainly no exception. Dee, a cinematographer and drone pilot, previously used two monitors, but he decided to declutter his desk and replace them with an UltraWide 34-incher from LG Electronics. The massive monitor still leaves him with plenty of screen real estate.

In terms of audio, a pair of Bose speakers give him banging sound. And he uses a high-quality Røde microphone. To complement his minimalist desk, he uses a Rain Design mStand to hold his MacBook.

Podcasting on iOS is perfectly feasible, as long as you don’t want to use Skype or FaceTime to talk and record the audio at the same time. The new RødeCaster Pro mixer/recorder neatly sidesteps this issue, as well as putting everything a podcaster might need into one sturdy box. And because the hardware is made by Røde, it’s probably pretty good.

Since I started running Cult of Mac‘s YouTube channel, I’ve been striving for the best visuals and audio possible. Compare our latest videos with some of our earlier ones, and you should see improvements across the board.

I’ve always neglected audio, but I’ve learned over time that sound proves vital to crafting quality videos. So much importance to mics do I give now that I’ve even made a Review of the best karaoke mics here. With that in mind, I recently tried out the Rode NTG4+ microphone. Now it’s part of my essential kit for creating videos.

Check out my video review below.