Good day beautiful people I am looking for input from anyone who knows of a cheap small speaker that can endlessly play an audio file from a USB drive or a TF / MicroSD card, I want a small speaker that can be powered by a normal USB a wall charger via an extension cord, I have some Halloween decorations and I want to complete it with a spooky ambient sound effect in the background without having to Bluetooth connect, so I figured just buy a cheap speaker and loop an audio file on it. I looked up some speakers but Google AI says that a speaker playing through a TF / microSD Card will be unable to loop an audio file for multiple days on end while connected to a power source because the firmware is incapable of looping an audio file for an extended period of time, or something like that?... Anyone have any experience with this particular matter? Thank you all very much for any insights you may have and have a good day / night!

Hello, people of r/audio. I am trying to record audio for a video I'm making, where I'm just reading lines off of a script. I have a very low budget microphone, the: https://fifinemicrophone.com/products/fifine-k669b-microphone

I had imagined my apartment would be a pretty good place to record audio, because it has great insulation. I almost never get noise from even the apartments right next to me. Nevertheless my microphone seems to captue a lot of background noise, and my own audio feels ... crispy(in a bad way)

A friend has advised me that I should turn down the input volume of the microphone on my Windows 11 laptop, apply background noise removal, then amplify after the fact for the best outcome with my current setup.

I thought having the input volume turned up might be better, since I assumed there would be a wider range for inputs to allow for more... color. I also thought that amplifying the volume after the fact might produce worse quality, but it's not like I know anything.

I tested both methods, and I am going crazy trying to figure out which works better. What I wanted to ask is as follows.
When recording voiceover with a lower quality microphone for an amateur production, which is standard practice: Recording with microphone input volume turned down, or all the way up?

I am using Audacity both to record, and apply the background noise reduction.

Please excuse me likely using the wrong terms for most things I describe. I have very little experience with digital audio.