samson microphones

[treymonfauntre]

my friends band just recorded a demo using the samson drum kit including the pencil condensors as overheads. at first i thought it sounded good but then i listened to something else afterwards and immediately realized how bad it truly was

 

[4-Man Takedown]

The inside of the grill is lined with a piece of foam, which besides of sound deterioration, creates long term problems. In a few years the foam will begin deteriorating, thus leaving debries stuck on the diaphragm, and the thing will become unusable.

I may be wrong but don't a lot of mics have foam inside the grill? An SM58 for example??? I know those have been known to last. Plus I have had my C01's for 2 years and they sound the same as they did when I got them, I don't even take all that great care of them.

I have many recordings using these on vocals and I'd be hard pressed to hear any noise, as in, there is no noise that you can hear. Yes 23db is a lot of noise and these are noisy mics if you are recording something very quiet, but when recording most people singing along with music you won't be able to hear it. I wouldn't use them to record classical music, but they are OK mics.

 

[PhilGood]

I may be wrong but don't a lot of mics have foam inside the grill? An SM58 for example???

A dynamic mic will have foam under the grill, but not a condenser. Diaphragms on dynamic mics are thicker and can handle the particles if the foam beaks down. A condenser has a diaphragm anywhere from 10 to 3 microns in thickness. A human hair is 50 microns thick. That's pretty delicate. Any serious LDC/SDC will not have foam inside the grill.

BTW, Marik is a serious expert at this stuff. He manufactures ribbon mics and customizes condenser mics. I take his word as gold.

 

[4-Man Takedown]

Well, that makes sense and all, but my mics still do work fine 2+ years later, like I said they sound the exact same as when I got them. I guess I should look forward to them starting to crap out soon.

Also I would like to know much better mics I could get for that price? I got mine new for $50 each.

 

[Marik]

A dynamic mic will have foam under the grill, but not a condenser. Diaphragms on dynamic mics are thicker and can handle the particles if the foam beaks down. A condenser has a diaphragm anywhere from 10 to 3 microns in thickness. A human hair is 50 microns thick. That's pretty delicate.

Another reason is that there is a constant electrostatic charge on a capsule, so all the junk will be attracted to the diaphragm.

Any serious LDC/SDC will not have foam inside the grill.

That's for sure.

but my mics still do work fine 2+ years later, like I said they sound the exact same as when I got them.

When you drive Neon or something similar, you never know when it breaks on you.

Also I would like to know much better mics I could get for that price? I got mine new for $50 each.

The current price is $59.99. If you are on the budget, but can stratch a little bit, you could get a much nicer and versitile mic.