STRMKR,
Unfortunately, there was not. I had read about the Groove Tube line of tube mics for quite awhile, but I did not know about the AM series, and that mic shoot-out CD was the first time I had heard a recording with one.
The competition was stiff, and my wife and I both did blind listening tests so we wouldn't be affected by brand-name preferences and price. Once we whittled our list down to those mics we really liked, THEN we looked at prices and eliminated those we'd never be able to afford.
Interestingly, though,
the AM62, even when I thought it was going to be about $895 or so, remained on my strong list of "mics wanted." It beat out a lot of more expensive mics from famous brands.
I realize that putting together that 49 mic shoot-out took an enormous amount of work by about 10 people, just to assemble the mics in one place and design and execute a reasonably fair trial in which only one of the engineers present knew which was which (!). It's little wonder that Mr. Fuston sells the CD for $50; but it's already saved me 10 times that amount easily.
Nevertheless, I long for Lynn Fuston or someone else to do another well controlled mic shoot-out that includes more of the less expensive condensors and tubed mics that have come out in the last couple of years, along with the trusted classics.
Two of the most satisfying (if completely irrelevant) "discoveries" of rating the 49 x 2 tracks (solo male and female vocalist on each mic) in blind listening tests was discovering that the $80 Shure SM57 sounded musically solid and better than some of the more esoteric mics (all of which were significantly more expensive, of course), and that the "$22,000" Telefunken (the owners of classic mics got to make up whatever they wanted as their current value) sounded like some old piece of crap!
Across the board, perhaps my favorite mic was
the AT 4060, and I actually liked all of its cousins as well. But the (now $400) GT AM62, while a little more distinctive in character and perhaps not quite as noiseless, was still right up there with the best of them.
Go figure!
Mark H.
P. S. I expect a full report from you on the pair you got.
) has nothing to do with the forum topic. You end up reading it, because you scroll down to all the unread posts...or at least I do.
...actually it should probably be around 5-10% if I am really serious about my recording...or zero percent, I suppose...
