Audio technica atr2500 USB microphone suddenly stopped picking up voice well.

[Jarify]

Yesterday my mic was working perfectly, but for some reason today the quality of the mic suddenly dropped it; now sounds like a $10 mic. My voice sounds like its from far away like its in the background. Putting the levels up just makes my voice louder but then the background noise just gets louder. I tried plugging the mic into different USB ports but that doesn't solve the problem. I'm using windows 10 if that helps.

 

[Ralston18]

Plug in as usual and while speaking gently twist, bend, and wiggle the mic cables along its full length with particular attention to the end connections. See ifthe quality changes at any given point.

Try another mic on your computer and try your mic on another computer.

See if the problem follows the mic or the computer.

Could be the mic has a bad connection or some other failure happening.

 

[Jarify]

Plug in as usual and while speaking gently twist, bend, and wiggle the mic cables along its full length with particular attention to the end connections. See ifthe quality changes at any given point.

Try another mic on your computer and try your mic on another computer.

See if the problem follows the mic or the computer.

Could be the mic has a bad connection or some other failure happening.

I tried what you said but the quality was exactly the same, I also tried a different usb cable but that didn't work either. I used my headset mic and I had the same issue.

 

[Ralston18]

If, provided I understand correctly, two mics had the same problem then that points at the PC or at least the USB connectivity involved as the problem source.

However, the way to be sure is to see if the mics work correctly (i.e., quality is better) on another separate system. Swap the USB cables there as well.

And do not forget to "right click" the speaker icon (lower right corner) and go into the Recording devices options. Select your mic, click "Properties" and drill down through all of the properties tabs and details. There are lots of tabs and settings.

No harm in exploring the other options: i.e., Sounds, Playback devices, etc.. Work through the various tabs and see how things are configured.
Run the Troubleshooter to see what it finds.