Is the B1 phantom powered?
Maybe I have a real old one....but my B3 is anything except 'real bright'.....Its a great mic for the money and is a very very good mic for drum overs and as a second LDC on acoustic guitar. I always thought it to be a bit on the dark side of things and not at all 'brittle'.
My C1, however, WAS 'brittle'. Hence its gone. I'm not a fan of that hyped edge in some mics.
My B3 was bought new in 2001.
I have two B3's.
I'm currently wrestling with the idea of upgrading the tantalum caps in it...My ears have become sensitive to a brittle nature in the sound and somebody said that swapping those out with some poly caps would help, BUT, all that rubbish aside...
Mine are the older silver-ish models, not the new gold-ish ones. They sound especially good run through my EH12AY7 tube pre's.