@Shaveblog
>But both mics resolve the same information, and neither mic is recovering "lost details" that the other is missing.

This tells me that you have never compared the Rode and the Neumann. While i like both, and have both, i cannot make this same statement from my experience and neither will any experienced engineer.
No offence but you will probably regret entering this kind of discussions, because you do not have the experience, hence you make wild statements that defy any logic.
For instance : why would a bad mic with a bad capsule transfer the same information as a good mic with good capsule? If you make such a statement, then i know for fact it doesn't make sense and that as a statement it is stupid. (I didn't say you were stupid, as i don't know you and cannot possibly make any assessment about your intelligence whatsoever.)

Then the part about subjectivity which you confuse with quality : yes, any mic, even the dirt cheap mics, will have their use in one or another application. (If you read my earlier posts in this thread you'd know i don't have anything against cheap mics)
But to claim that a 50$ Nady, Studio Projects, SM57 or whatever will give you the same result (provided it suits the voice of the individual) as an expensive Neumann in a thread on vocal mics, is just misleading to a lot of people that don't know one mic from another.

Yes, a cheap Chinese mic like a Nady can be "hacked", where they fiddle with the electronics, and nearly always replace the capsule, so it sounds like a Neumann, but those modifications often cost more than the mic itself, so this will give you some idea of the necessity of quality materials. That's why i think @thepalalias made a valid point saying that quality comes at a cost and that 400$ is probably the point from where you get into really good quality mics, provided you have a good sample, because chinese mics don't have consistent quality control.

Now mic religion is something completely different. It's to do with the snobism that only expensive mics are suited for certain applications. I wonder when a 400$ mic became an expensive investment in a forum about a camera which body has just been discounted to 700$ and which brand sells a 50mm equivalent lens for exactly that price?

@johnnym

I've been engaging in ob/sub debates for decades now, even predating the Internet as we know it, and I always wind up regretting my involvement. Entrenched non-reality belief systems are immovable objects. But since you called me stupid..

Look, clearly you're belief-based when it comes to these things, whereas I'm experience-based. So I don't think we're going to agree on this stuff.

That said, I do think you're a bit confused with terminology. Sound quality can't be anything _but_ purely subjective - how can something that requires an individual's own unique ears/brain/biases/preferences/beliefs to render an opinion be anything even remotely objective?

Objectivity is measuring your penis with a ruler. You may disagree that your penis is 3 inches long but that doesn't change the objective, settled fact that it is. I speak purely hypothetically, of course.

But if I say I don't care for the sound of a Neumann on a particular vocalist and prefer the way a Rode sounds, or a Shure, or an RCA, there isn't any objective standard you can cite which refutes my opinion. There's no measurement, no ruler you can lay both mics against and declare that one's "better". The only thing you can do is render a subjective opinion. And if someone else has a different opinion, he's not "wrong" or "stupid".

RE "resolution" - no, there is no more "resolution" with a Neumann than a Rode, or any other decent mic. Actual resolution relates to bandwidth, i.e. a mic's HF response. A mic flat to 80kHz has more resolution than a mic which, like many Neumanns, has a big resonant peak around 4-8KHz and rolls off after that. You are mistaking coloration for resolution. What you describe as resolution is actually just transducer resonances and frequency response peaks which brighten the sound. It's a common mistake. You hear something more forward in the mix and you equate that with "more resolution", when all it really means is the mic has a presence peak and emphasizes details by pushing them forward in the mix relative to a mic with a flatter response. But both mics resolve the same information, and neither mic is recovering "lost details" that the other is missing. Psychoacoustics 101.

At the end of the day it all boils down to this: some people think about microphones more than they listen to them, and vice-versa. It's my experience that the former group spends a lot of its time arguing about "better" mics and "resolution" on geek fora, and the latter group gets a rep for good sounding work. And there is little to no overlap between the two groups.

So, from this moment no >$300 mikes discussions in this topic.
We'll make new topic "Good large diaphragm mikes" and will continue to discuss pricey mike in it.

Well, speakers and mics are both transducers, mechanical devices which convert acoustic waveforms to electrical signals (and vice-versa). Transducers have always been an imperfect science, lagging far behind electronics in terms of linear transfer function. So mics and speakers all have imperfect transfer functions, hence distortion, hence "character".

Certainly people are entitled to their opinion that this mic's character sounds better than that mics, but as there is no objective standard for mics and sound quality is purely subjective anyway, I feel it's more helpful to offer some good budget mic recommendations rather than tell people they can't have a good mic if they spend less than $400. The skill of the recording engineer, the acoustics of the room, and the placement of the performer and mic all swamp whatever differences exist between a $5,000 mic and a $50 one.

Good mics start at $400? That's just silly. There are plenty of excellent mics, no qualifiers needed, under $200. Even an unmodified Nady SCM900 Chinese Neumann knockoff is a very good mic, and you can pick these up for $50. You can even go in and mod it to your heart's content and make it sound much worse if you like. Plenty of guys with no engineering understanding trolling mic geek fora to help you with this.

The Nady's a large diaphragm condenser. Need a good cheap omni? Behringer ECM8000 measurement mic. Excellent small-diaphragm omni for, yes, $50.

Seriously great vocal recording mic on the cheap? Shure SM57, old Unidyne or new Mexican, doesn't matter, unscrew the windscreen and toss it, load it at 600 ohms. >$100, and anyone who complains about the sound is a mic snob, a gear fetishist, or both.

Mic religion might be the most over-bloviated topic online. There are expensive mics and there are cheap mics, but there is no correlation between price and sound quality. Some of the most muffled and peaky mics I've worked with have been the most expensive and boutique, and some of the cleanest and more musical have been the cheapest (e.g. the "naked" SM57, which was a real eye-opener).

Also, "the best mic" is like saying a hammer is better than a screwdriver. Different tools for different tasks. I like my old RCA ribbons for horns and guitar amps but the naked SM57 sounds better for vocals.

Just found this one. It seems like a European alternative to the Peluso, as it uses the same capsule. http://opalmicrophones.com/Opal_Microphones/OM7_INFO.html
Price is pretty nice so it seems. I wonder how good it is. There are no reviews, as it's just released.

Yeap I'm the 99.9%

---i always forget to post on-topic :) -----

@DrDave Also, you lumped ALL the solution Ds together, but there are several D range mics. :) You can pick the KM184D with a starter kit up for under $2k, not the $8k you mentioned earlier.

@DrDave

Mics and loudspeakers are like religion.
Some guys settle early and live happily.
Some search perfection whole life...

@Mark_theHarp IMHO the KM140 is better than subsequent designs including the 184--Hang on to it.
I'm surprised to hear a vocalist wanted the 184, I would never use that mic for voice. But that's taste, of course. I guess Beyer MCD100 is a mic that rocks on vocals that you never see anymore. Anyone has one let me know.

I can honestly say that although I enjoy reading SOS, I would never rely on their gear reviews. I rely on them for a quick explanation of features. I would not place those mics there, and so the results have no use for me.