EV Cobalt CO4 review

The Axis

Member
I bought a CO4 at MARS for $50, figuring it might a funny "effect" mike...but DAMN ! When I tried it out on my acoustic guitar, it sounded DAMN GOOD ! It is not nearly as tinney as most cheap dynamics (like the SM57) and has better low end than most.

The upper midrange is a little boosted, but it doesn't have any tinniness at all. The highs are very smooth, but don't extend extremely high, catching the "sparkle" like my earthworks mikes, but it is still a very good, smooth sound. The sparkle is something you don't really miss unless you hear it in an A/B comparison.

The biggest drawback is that like many dynamics, they have low output, so I have the gain cranked to 66 dB on my preamp. You need a high gain, low-noise preamp for soft sources like fingerstyle acoustic guitar.

I went back today and bought two more ! Great little mike, and built like a tank !

Peace,
Rick
 
HI Rick,
on my holiday back in good old germany I had the chance to compare a beyer m201 with the md521 (a md421 w/o bass roll off) and the 441. I don't know how these little babys are priced in the US, but in G. it goes for the equivalent of about 150US$ and is a very smooth SD dynamic! To me it sounded remarkably better than the 521 and very close to the much more expensive 441.
 
Hi H Kuhn,
In the USA, the Beyers and Sennheisers go for approx. $300+, so they aren't quite as good a bargain. I had tried the Senn MD421 previously, and thought that it sounded too "dull" for acoustic guitar. I have never seen the MD521 in the US. My experience with the CO4 has caused me to rethink my whole attitude towards cheap dynamic mikes though.

I had gradually moved to more clinically accurate and expensive mikes in an attempt to capture acoustic guitar sounds, but now I have a pair of the C04s set up side by side with my Earthworks QTC1s, and I am amazed at the similarity. Yeah the QTC1s are a little better, but the Co4s are $50 !!!

Taiwanese science and technology marches on !

Peace,
Rick
 
The Axis,

Thanks for the review. I bought one of these after having it recommended in my fifty dollar mic thread and I thought it was very clean sounding. Then I got busy and I haven't had time to test it more thoroughly. So I'm going to post a link to your review in my fifty dollar mic thread.

Thanks,

Hairy Larry
 
I used a pair on a couple of sound jobs this past summer (1 indoors, one outdoors), for snare, toms, vocal and amp. I'm surprised at the "low output" comment because I had to pad them way down on the snare and amp. Sounded good on snare, once you get it padded correctly. Not as usable as a 57 for vocals (again, the padding issue on a loud stage), and had a "bright-flat" sound, if that makes sense. Did a decent job on guitar amps (again, the padding issue). You could hammer a 57 into a piece of wood with them.

Paj
8^)
 
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