The Cinderella Microphone

The last foot your try is the best one.


After spending countless hours on eBay microphone hunting...


Well it is not always hunting, usually the best ones are the ones that nobody wants...


After a few years on eBay searching and listening to perhaps the best moving coil microphones on the planet...


And now that the Pleiades V6 front end amp is up and running so that any mic is like being connected to an electron microscope...


The best omni so far is the Grampian DP4/L.


In fact the best mic so far. So big, clear, punchy, natural, HF detailed, big bass but no bass heaviness, smooth but live midrange, low noise...


And so far from the constant D directionals is believe it or not the Schaub Lorenz SM200  with squarish cross section, made by Beyer?. Natural, nothing disturbing. excellent HF detail, smooth and live midrange, nice bass, not bass heavy, you can sing close to it, there is a bit of hiss.


From directionals so far the miraculous RE-15 should be top. A direct comparison between the 2 has not been made yet.


Special thanks to:


Martin Mitchel
For his rediscovery of the Grampian DP4/L


Trashblitz
For his mentioning of the name Schaub Lorentz on the M55? post.


Of course pay attention to the setup. For example the mics are terminated by 140mH input transformer primary inductance. And a world class BA-2C or Neumann U47 based booster amp is used, electron vacuum tube, 4V battery powered, the Pleiades V6. The schematic as everything Pleiades is open source.


140mH is low for some 200Ω omni mics (due to bass cut) but most of the top class mics had been connected to a higher primary inductance transformers, eg. 200mH, 300mH, 400mH. See other euroelectron posts.


Signal path, setup:


Male voice singing A Taste of Honey (in C minor) at 2in to 6in - microphone - Pleiades V6 head amplifier with (1:10, 140mH input transformer primary) - Sony TC-D5 Pro at balanced mic in, in mono mode - Sennheiser HD580 precision


It will not be mentioned to which mics they were today compared to. Let's not give them any more hard time.


References:


Pleiades V6 schematic - euroelectron


Neumann U47 schematic


RCA BA-2C schematic
http://www.coutant.org/ba2c/index.html