Finaly had a chance to listen to these mic's. An artist I have been working with was good enough to give me some of his time (in exchance for mine ofcourse) to throw these mic's up and give them a listen. I hope to have some clips to post next week (if the artist and producer are ok with it) But here are some thoughts:
For the listen the artist basicaly played an acoustic guitar and sang.
First up were the mic's we used for the session, a pair of Shoeps m221b's. (my personal favorite for his guitar) These fed a Millennia Media
HV3D-8, to Mytek Digital Converters at 192k connected via AES (RME's AES32) to my Nuendo Workstation.
I only had about an hour of burn in on the tube mic's from the day I got them and I did not have the time to let them warm up sufficiantly, they were probably on all of 5 minutes so results may very......
All microphones were spaced about 10 inches apart for A-B stereo.
So the ACM310's. Just about as I expected. They had a decently full sound with a tight top end. They were a little muddy in comparison to the m221's, but the sound was desierable. I am hoping with a little more burn in time the responce will smooth out a little since they tended to be a little boomy in the 200k - 300k range. I am already thinkign of going through and maping out some cap upgrades to see if I can open up the top a little more.
Ok, on to the ACM1200's (cardioid). They did not play as well with the acoutic gtr (it is naturaly dark sound), but in comparison they were much darker sounding, with a decent body (I get wine and microphones mixed up). Still they had a decent sound. Honestly I was not expecting anything from them, since I have been planing on moding them since day 1. I am thinking of swapping diaphrams out with some Peluso CEK-12's and maybe a botique transformer.
The 6802t (cardioid) was used on his voice and was compared to a Telefunken u47 long body (probably not a fair fight). Natualy the difference was night and day, the 6802's responce seemed to dip quickly beyond 15khZ (the artist has a very cool breathy sound, that plays well in the 17kHz range). I felt that the top and was tight and closing in. The lower ranges were favorable, and offered up that nice "presence" that we have come to love. I think I will be able to expect some great thigns from this in the future. I think this will be a cool choice for a soprano sax.
Again, these is really no time on the tubes so these are just preliminary opinions that are sure to change. These mic's are without a doubt worth the money and I ma sure they will find many uses where they shine.
Next week I will be working with an 80 piece wind band so I will be able to throw all of these up and have some better material to judge these by. I should also have the opertunity to burn them in for several hours between now and then. I will be able to post those clips with out a problem.