Lets just start off by examining the price. At under twenty dollars you won't find many competitors, especially with this build quality. It is essentially an embroidery hoop with black pantyhose, an adjustable arm and screw clamp. Building one yourself will probably run you over twenty dollars and you will end up with an interesting mixture of distracting textures and colors, so why not just buy it instead? Functionally it works fine. It does muffle sound to some extent when stacked up against a metal mesh screen but for anything short of an audience of 50,000, it should appease just fine. all in all, if you are hitting annoying pops in your recording and don't want to spend a lot of money -- this is the way to go.