How bad is quality control in Oktava´s

[cominginsecond]

I've bought ten and never had a problem with a single one. Ever. They all sound similar and they are all within a couple decibels in output.

I am personally of the opinion that the quality control problems they have are way overblown. I think it's possible that there were some problems early on, but that they were corrected.

 

[acorec]

I´ve read a lot of posts about Oktava´s bad quality control. Do you have any idea how really bad it is?. I mean could you tell a number.... 1 out of 4 Mc 012 fails, or 1 out of 10, or something??.
I´m looking for a pair in Ebay, what do you think, is this the right place??.

Check this out:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2545998361&category=15198

They got 10!! available, I know that if I buy a pair won´t be matched, but it doesn´t matter at all.

The main problem in my area was that GC would get a ton of mics. People would buy them and return the bad ones. Over time, the GC salesguys and gals would test the returned mics and put then back in stock if they passed a signal. When the end of the batch was reached, there would be all the bad ones and very few good ones left.

All the mics I bought are very good. I got the ML52, MKL2500, (2) MK319s (2) MK219s and (8) MK012s. All are working perfectly and sound great.

 

[paddyponchero]

People would buy them and return the bad ones.

Or sell them on ebay

I have three MK-012s they all have tooling marks and scratches but they work perfectly and sound great. I have worked in electronics for 12 years and have seen hundreds of tonnes of parts scrapped due to tiny -> slight cosmetic defects like that. It really adds to the production cost just to satisfy the proportion of anally retentive people that care about that sort of thing. The russians have the right attitude.

 

[xstatic]

Last year I bought 12 of the 012 models. Out of the 12, 4 of them had mic clips that would not hold the threading on stands. Out of the 12 I could only find two that actually sounded the same. All the others sounded quite different, and this is not with an analyzer, just by ear. I know that if I went and bought 12 Neumann KM184's, that all the clips would work. I also know that I could probably find 6 that were close enough to being matched that I couldn't really tell the difference, and that the other 6 would only be subtle differences. Do I regret buying the Oktava's? No way. At $50 a piece it was well worth it because they actually sound fairly decent. Do they hold their own against a neumann? Not a chance, but then there is a big price difference that also justifies the sonic differences. Basically, I like to call them what they are. Cheap mics that can certainly be usable. However, I have tried their ribbon mic, and both the 219 and the 319. I found them to be pretty dull and useless. In my opinion a waste of money considering the flood of other mics in the same price range.

 

[acorec]

Last year I bought 12 of the 012 models. Out of the 12, 4 of them had mic clips that would not hold the threading on stands. Out of the 12 I could only find two that actually sounded the same. All the others sounded quite different, and this is not with an analyzer, just by ear. I know that if I went and bought 12 Neumann KM184's, that all the clips would work. I also know that I could probably find 6 that were close enough to being matched that I couldn't really tell the difference, and that the other 6 would only be subtle differences. Do I regret buying the Oktava's? No way. At $50 a piece it was well worth it because they actually sound fairly decent. Do they hold their own against a neumann? Not a chance, but then there is a big price difference that also justifies the sonic differences. Basically, I like to call them what they are. Cheap mics that can certainly be usable. However, I have tried their ribbon mic, and both the 219 and the 319. I found them to be pretty dull and useless. In my opinion a waste of money considering the flood of other mics in the same price range.

I hear ya. I went and got some Neumann K184s and they were simply horrible sounding in my room. Those are really lousy mics. Other mics that sounded bad for me were the Senn 441 and the AKG 414s. All these mics I tried were a waste of money and really useless in my opinion. I am still looking for mics in that price range that are actually good sounding.

 

[giraffe]

All the mics I bought are very good. I got the ML52, MKL2500, (2) MK319s (2) MK219s and (8) MK012s. All are working perfectly and sound great.

crap, i thought i liked oktava, i only have 5
how is the 2500?

and i bought two oktavas off of ebay, after buying one from git center
one off of ebay was a little bassier then the other two, so i sold it but it wasn't that bad.

i think it's a risk worth takeing

 

[baekgaard]

I've got 4. The 3 of them are very close to one another. The 4th is kind of "weird"; and definitely not in spec. I think a new capsule would fix this.

I am kind of planning on mod'ing two of the mics after Scot's instructions. This way, I could have 2 old and 2 mod'ed bodies.


-- Per.