The New Bumper Crop of Large Diaphragm Condenser Mics
By Ty Ford

Mic Comparison Technique
Joerg Wuttke Interview

In the last column, several weeks back, I outlined where this hike was headed and mentioned a few of the stops along the way. I also made some observations about quality, quality control, the Democratization of Audio started by the Mackie 1604 and Alesis ADAT and some of the business underpinnings that determine how expensive a mic will be when it hits the market. (If you missed that installment, simply click here.)

This time I’ll wade right into large diaphragm condenser mics and go from there. How much difference does country of origin make? What about the tube vs FET issue? Cheap vs expensive? Which patterns? New or used? I also had a chance to catch up with Joerg Wuttke, Technical Director and Chief Engineer at Schoeps in Germany. Schoeps makes world-class condenser mics, none of which have large diaphragms. Click here to find out what’s up with that.

THE HISTORY

One of the most important trends in semi-professional and professional recording has been the downward price spiral of condenser microphones. Historically, the highly functional AKG C414 (in any of its five iterations) was considered a baseline standard; pad, roll-off, omni, hypercardioid, cardioid and figure of eight for a street price of less than $1k.

The standard-setting AKG C414

The market began to change in the summer of 1991 when the Gefell UM 70S, UM 70 and M71 “Perestroika Mics” arrived from what had been East Germany. I never quite understood the marketing of a German mic with a Russian adjective, but the mics offered a documented connection to the Neumann heritage. The quieter, three-pattern UM 70S ($1150), standard, three pattern UM 70 ($995) and Cardioid-only M 71 ($795) offered “Neumann-like” sound at less-than-Neumann prices. The first run had some RF problems, but those were solved and Gefell settled in to provide a new line of mics. Late in 1992, Neumann responded to the Gefell mics with the no pad, no rolloff, cardioid-only TLM-193, a reinvention of the U 89/TLM 170 design for $1295. The game was on.

Since then, the mic market has become bloated and turbulent. Drawn by the feeding frenzy of the booming project studio market, mic marketeers proliferated. But this was different. Prices were even lower and many of the new companies were not actually making the mics they brought to market. Entire mics or parts of mics were made in countries where labor was cheaper. On-site quality control took a back seat to low prices.

Certainly there’s nothing necessarily wrong with mics and parts coming from another vendor or another country. But many of the new mics were noisy and had noticeable distortion. Two of the same model would not necessarily sound the same and others only worked for a while before malfunctioning. I will not embarrass the makers and/or importers of some of these mics by mentioning their names. It was obvious that they were in it to sell as many mics as they could. Their pitch was simple; it’s not a Neumann, but it looks like one, costs a lot less, and who can tell the difference?

In fact, many average project studio consoles weren’t good enough to pass the sound of the higher priced mics without compromising that sound. Even if they were, the average monitor amps and monitors compromised the audio before it got to the relatively inexperienced ears of the project studio operator.

I am happy to report the beginning of a turning in this trend. Some of the new low-cost, large diaphragm condensers are sounding pretty good. Not as good as the top of the line mics, but audibly better than the first and second wave of condenser mics under $500. Whether their long-term reliability will keep them competitive remains to be seen. Here’s what to look and listen for:

1. Self-noise
2. Sensitivity
3. Distortion
4. Off-axis sound quality
5. Shape of pattern

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