Just got my APEX 460 *review*

[HogansHiro]

okey doke. I finally got my Apex 460 (telefunken RTF clone) the other day form MusiciansBuy.com. I must say this is my first tube mic and I was impressed with how heavy the box was. Here's my two cents worth.

Packaging--cardboard box with foamish compartments which contain the mic inside it's vinyl pouch. 7 pin XLR and power cables. Power supply unit with polar pattern selection. Shiny chromish shock mount. Foam windscreen.

I'll start with the small stuff first.

The power supply unit was a little jacked. the silk screening is on slightly angled on the rear and the front jacks for the 7 pin XLR and the mic 3 pin XLR are a little cockeyed as well. Oh well...maybe the factory in china is on a hill.

Shock mount is all chromed out. With out trying to scratch at it I can't tell if it's just chrome paint or not but I suspect it is. I doubt they chrome dipped these things. It seems like a pretty tight fit and there's enough tension in the holder I shouldn't have to worry about it strectching out unlike my MXL mounts did.

Mic... First thing I did was unscrew that puppy and check the innards against the website that compared it to the RTF. Yup...looks the same. The tube is unlabeled and even looks cheap upon closer glance of the filaments. The little plates/boards in it look like they were all cut uneven.

Setup....nice fit...it is a heavy mic so I had to pull out a tripod mic stand as it was too heavy for my metal base stand at the heighth/angle I had it at. The 7-pin XLR cable seems sturdy but the pins itself look dangerously thin. I know I am going to have to take care when I plug unplug this thing to keep from bending the pins.

Sound....Plugged it into my joe meek pre amp pulled up a vocals/piano song I have been recording. I redid my vocals which were originally done with my KSM27. 1st track redone with the Apex 460 was lack for a better word crap. There was no presence and the highs seem to roll off amazingly low. I have a tenor voice with not much low end so the loss of highs was extremely noticable. The noise floor was acceptable and unnoticable with the piano mix. The mids were'nt accentuated any as compared to my ksm27. All in all I thought the sound was muffled...almost as if it was too much tube warmth just without any harmonics giving it clarity

Now that I am on the verge of being pissed about my new mic...I decide to swap out the cheap china tube. The only spare tube I have is a Fender 12aX7 I bought for my fender twin. I yank out the old tube which happens to be a **** hair shorter than the nipple on the fender. I had to remove the top tension spring to get the fender tube to slide into place. I hooked it back up and did a second take. Lo and behold I now have presence and a resemblance of a decent clarity. The range of my voice is even and I now have usable range recorded that I can now eq to get my sound. The mic still lacks the smoothness of my KSM27 but it is getting there.

Once I experiment with some more tubes I am sure I will have a very useful mic. Hell, I might even change the transformer if I get a wild hair up my ass.

Keep in mind this was just on vocals...I'm gonna have to wait until I get some serious freetime to check it out on my acoustic guitars or grand piano.

All in all....not a bad investment if you feel like playing with tubes for a few recordings to get a good sound.

I'm content with my purchase. its going into my locker and not e-BAY.

 

[scrubs]

Good review. I, too, just got one of these mics a couple of weeks ago. Here are my initial thoughts:

Hoganshiro already described the box and stuff, so I won’t belabor that. I will say that the shock mount is cheap for such a heavy mic and doesn’t really cut it for any angled position (straight up and down is o.k., if you can get the screw tight enough). It would have been nice to have a hard case included, but for the $$, I’m not too picky about that. I’ll confirm that the innards are the same as in the pics posted on Dot’s site.

I plugged this thing in using the provided 7-pin XLR and let it warm up for about 6 hours before I tried it out. Note that one of the pins on the mic was slightly bent and needed to be straightened. They (the pins) do seem rather fragile. All tests were done using a GT Brick preamp, unless otherwise noted.

My first test was on vocals. I retracked a vocal that I had done the previous day with a Rode NT-1. Both the NT-1 and the 460 are bright mics, but the 460 was just a hair brighter. The mic had a nice clarity on spoken word and singing. I have a pretty deep voice and didn’t notice the harsh high end that other reviews have noted. Sibilance was similar to the NT-1 (slightly emphasized). There would definitely not be a problem getting a slick vocal track for a pop song out of this one, though I could imagine it getting nasty on a screechy female voice.

Next, I tried it on acoustic guitar. With the variable polar patterns, I was able to get a better variety of tones than from the NT-1 (which I’ve never liked on my guitar). My favorite position was figure 8, with the mic turned sideways and the null directly over the soundhole. I also got a nice, tight sound from hypercardioid pointed at the neck-body joint. I’m anxious to try it out for M-S (probably with the MXL 603s or SM81 as the mid mic) and Blumlein (with the CAD M179 as the other figure 8).

Given that others had noticed improvement with a tube change, I thought I would give that a go. I picked up a G.E. JAN 6072a NOS tube ($25) from e-bay. I’m guessing this is more of an amp tube, but I didn’t feel like shelling out the money wanted for the “microphone-grade” tubes (I know absolutely zero about tubes). The installation was a snap. I, again, let it warm up for several hours with the new tube. A quick test on vocals followed. The difference was surprising. It really did seem “warmer”…almost too warm, bordering on muddy. I immediately wanted to sing some blues and soul. I tracked a scratch vocal for a Weezer-ish rock tune that turned out decent. I noticed some decrease in the sibilance and a lot less brightness compared with the stock tube.

I thought perhaps the combination of this new tube with the tubes in the Brick might be a little much, so I checked out the mic with a couple of my cheap SS pres (DMP3, VTB-1 without toob gain). Both still retained the warm tone, but with a touch more clarity.

All in all, it’s an interesting mic. I will likely keep it and mess around with it some more. I’ll definitely leave the new tube in it for bluesy numbers and have the stock tube around if I want some more brightness. I may attempt some cap/resistor mods at some point, though I am not overly skilled with the soldering iron. I have no intention of picking up the Telefunken for comparison, but would gladly review it if anyone wants to send me one.

 

[Mr. Moon]

...are a little cockeyed as well. Oh well...maybe the factory in china is on a hill.

Good humor!!

-mr moon

 

[matt0410]

Given that others had noticed improvement with a tube change, I thought I would give that a go. I picked up a G.E. JAN 6072a NOS tube ($25) from e-bay. I’m guessing this is more of an amp tube, but I didn’t feel like shelling out the money wanted for the “microphone-grade” tubes (I know absolutely zero about tubes). The installation was a snap.

I've just bought a couple of these and I'm trying out some mods, I can't work out how to get the tube out of the housing though and I don't want to put too much pressure on anything for fear of breaking things, how did you actually do the tube replacement?
thanks