dcptnsdcvd said:
oh, i see...
so, i gotta win the lotto or steal the federal reserve, and buy every mic in the world, bring em home and record with each.
cuz listening to a mic in the store doesn;t do any good. it's gonna sound completely diffrent when you put it in a recording environment and when it's recorded.
so i can do nothing short of going out, buying whatever mic i've been recomended the most, and finding out if it;s shit or not when i get it home.
.
Dear deceptionsdeceived:
There actually is a better (or at least more reasonable) alternative, although the risk is you may have to abandon some of your delightful cynicism. I don't know exactly what the local resources are in Waterbury, CT. but with any luck you should be able to find a decent pro-audio dealer within 50-100 miles (even if it means going to NYC, Hartford, New London, or Boston). I'm talking about a high-end independent, not Sam Ash or Guitar Center.
The trick is to establish a personal relationship with that dealer. Honestly explain your situation - that over time you will be wanting to buy a select number of "better than entry level" pieces of gear - and you need to be able to audition alternatives.
I have that relationship with a dealer in the Boston area. If I'm looking for a mic, a preamp, monitors, or a compressor, for instance, he'll let me take 3 or 4 of them home for a week and compare them at my leasure. If he doesn't have a particular demo unit in stock, he'll even call a factory rep and get ahold of one for me. I learned long ago I can't tell squat about gear by listening to my own voice in a store (since I'm not a singer, among other reasons). I need to audition it under real-world conditions. As an alternative, if you CAN'T find someone willing to do that, you may be at least able to talk someone into letting you "buy" three or for pieces on your credit card with the understanding that you'll be returning all but one.
It shouldn't be that hard to establish that kind of relationship. It's an advantage to the dealer to create a fruitful long-term customer relationship with you, so you both benefit. Some people are afraid they will pay too much of a price premium shopping this way, as opposed to an internet superstore - but my experience has been that in most cases (exception being where one store buys out all the remaining factory stock on a discontinued item) my dealer will get me as good or BETTER price as anywhere i can find. Occasionally I've even been able to buy the demo piece itself at an even better discount. (I did that with a Genelec subwoofer, a Millenia Media TCL2 compressor, and a few other things).
So, it can work out really nicely. You can get a group of recommendations on a specific piece of gear from your colleagues or places like this, and then go and get a loan of a few of them from your dealer and make your own decision. There's no better way! And as a bonus, I'm even able to borrow stuff from my dealer from time to time for a specific session.
Even if someone you trusted was able to tell you unconditionally:
"Definitely buy the Funklogic Palindrometer"
...and you did and liked it... you still might always wonder that if you had a chance to personally compare, you might have really liked the Satirical Systems Oxymoronmeter better. There's no purchasing peace of mind better than doing your own comparison testing.
Good luck, and happy hunting.
