tube mic question

[hungovermorning]

Alright, I'm starting to think about this whole tube mic thing. In varying price ranges (100-200, 200-400, 400-750, 750-1000), what are good, versatile tube mics (for a single overhead on drums, electric guitar, maybe vocals). I don't mean something specifically designed for it but yeah. Sorry for the vagueness, thanks for your responses.

 

[pohaku]

General question and a quasi-general response. I don't know that there is much worth looking at under $200.

The GT-44 is a very nice medium D tube mic. Useful on a lot of things. I use it on guitars and acoustic instruments a lot. Don't know if GT is still making them, but there are a lot of them around used for @$250 or so. Banjomart blew them out a year ago for $200. They were @$500-600 at list. IMHO, the best of their recent tube mics. The older GT mics (MD1, MD2, MD3 and "a" reissues) are really great mics, but more $$ ($400-1000 used). I still think they are a relative bargain. I have a couple of these. Everyone should have at least one.

CAD has made some very nice affordable tube mics as well. The M9 runs about $300 street. The VX2 is more like $1000. AT-4060 ($800 or so used) is a great affordable LD tube mic. There are older Neumann-Gefell mics around (M582) that are very nice and still affordable. I recently bought an M582h with a LD M7 head for $900. A really great warm tube mic. Regular M582s are a lot less.

Peluso and Pearlman have been well spoken of for new high quality affordable tube mics as well. Prices have moved up though. I think they are running around $1200-1800 street now depending on model.

Lots of more generic inexpensive Chinese mics around, but I haven't used them enough to venture an opinion (I think the current GTs are manufactured in China, but perhaps with better quality control than the garden variety Shanghai mic). I get the general impression they have improved significantly although they aren't in the same league as the european mics.

After that we move into the stratosphere.

 

[homestudioguy]

Cad M9

I just ordered a CAD M9....
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar02/articles/cadm9.asp
http://www.recording.org/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=21
http://mixonline.com/products/review/audio_snapshot_product_reviews_10/
BG/HSG

 

[hungovermorning]

I just ordered a CAD M9....
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar02/articles/cadm9.asp
http://www.recording.org/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=21
http://mixonline.com/products/review/audio_snapshot_product_reviews_10/
BG/HSG

Wow... let us know if it lives up to the hype!

 

[kidvybes]

...the new Karma line is offering a free 1 week trial on any of their new mics including 2 tube models, a cardioid and a multi-pattern model (coming from some of the same guys that designed the well-respected SE line of microphones)... you might want to check them out as well...you can call Waylon Ford over there for some excellent introductory pricing...I'm gonna be ordering the ribbon mic for a trial run and post my impressions here on HR.com...
http://karmaaudio.com/trial.html