GB mic's, first impressions.

nuemes said:
The mic suits your vocal very nicely for the song. Sounds great.
Click to expand...

Thanks, man.

edit:
Hey I just posted another song that I recorded a couple of days ago. It's a cover I just learned the other day. Jeff Tweedy sings it, but I don't know if he wrote it. It's called "Please Tell My Brother"

http://www.myspace.com/brothersofabraham

I used the 6802T for vocals again. The guitar is an unmatched stereo with the 6802T panned left and a CAD e100 (2) panned to the right. Once again, I'm sure I could have some phasing issues. I should have bought another 6802 :-)
 
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The Royer has a tad bit more mid range, but wow, they are REALLY close. I wonder what transformer swap would do...
 
Not bad, but definitely a difference. I wounder how a transformer swap might help. The ACM lacks the sparkle and life of the "other" example. By itself its sound good, clean... but side by side... even though they're kinda close, it just sounds dull.

Still... for the $$$ involved, a very worthwhile investment. 0 regrets. (especially once mine actually arrive :D )

Thanks for posting.
 
it's almost uncanny how close they were, considering the difference in price

i agree that the 122 had some more sparkle on the top end...but for $1700 less, who can complain?
 
Forgot the 122 was phantom powered... wonder how it compairs to a 121. I've heard the preamp really makes or breaks the 121 which is part of the allure of the 122.
 
Cool test

Thanks for the samples. It would have been nice if it had been a blind comparison.

I always enjoy hearing people's evaluation of a mic before they know its label and price tag.
 
Thanks ROM... IMO the Royer has a much better Top end but for $60 the ACM-3 is not too shabby.
BTW- did your ACM-3 come Un-wrapped. All my mics and power supply's came wrapped up tight in plastic except my ACM-3. I was actually pretty surprised at how good all the cases and packaging were. These Mics are awesome for what the cost ratio is. The ACM-310, to me, is looking like the winner. I might need to get a In-Line pad though.

B.
 
I thought the Royer sounded noticeably better. I thought the ACM-3 sounded thinner and a bit fizzy - although I'll admit I only listened to them on phones (AKG K-500s). I'll listen again on my monitors when I get home.


Of course, for the money, I'd certainly use them if I had them (didn't buy those - I'm waiting to see how the ACM-310s are:D).
 
Booda said:
Thanks ROM... IMO the Royer has a much better Top end but for $60 the ACM-3 is not too shabby.
BTW- did your ACM-3 come Un-wrapped. All my mics and power supply's came wrapped up tight in plastic except my ACM-3. I was actually pretty surprised at how good all the cases and packaging were. These Mics are awesome for what the cost ratio is. The ACM-310, to me, is looking like the winner. I might need to get a In-Line pad though.

B.
Click to expand...

IMHO, the Chinese transformers pretty universally suck. You'll find poor HF response and probably ringing. The degree of suckage, however, is highly variable....

Upgrading the transformer is a great, easy modding project that really opens up the high end.
 
next project: install a new transformer in one of my two ACM-3s then have a shootout between the upgraded acm3, the stock acm3 and the r122.

any suggestions for a new transformer?
 
Jim I think the Lundahl LL2912 is the usual suspect.
Sometime we can still shoot out the Oktavamodded RSM-5 I have against your stock ribbon mic too. The RSM-5 has a new ribbon made by Senor Joly as well.
 
I couldn't hear much difference in sound on my monitors, Event 20/20P's & M Audio BX5's, but it was clear with headphones on. The ACM3 is somewhat dull. There's a drop-out in detail on the ACM3 that the other mic does not have, as if the ACM3 is not as sensitive - but maybe this is the ribbon being too loose and is an easy fix(?) If you can, check it out. Maybe we all just need to tighten our ACM ribbons to get improvement. Still waiting on mine so it's cheap talk - if anyone else has insight on this please jump in.

The nice thing is that they both respond in a similar fashion the the speaker. I can hear now why ribbons are such a good match to amps.
 
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Nuemes, the R122 has active electronics, If you put a R121 against a 122, you'll get similar results.
Ribbons are very picky about the preamp. Except in the case of a ribbon with it's own buffer that makes impedance matching virtually a non-issue.
The R122 is good for taking user error and component mismatching out of the equation.
 
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