Imagination or reality....?

I know it's a dead horse but I love bringing up the GS thread where someone posted blind samples of KM84 and KM184.  Most folks (even some *big names* who boasted they could pick the KM84 out of any lineup were SURE they picked the KM84) unknowingly picked the KM184 as their favorite before the OP revealed that most liked the KM184 better..  Then it was pages and pages of folks backtracking, deleting their posts and making excuses. 

Good times.

I like bringing it up because it's a great example of how tribal audio production and music are and should serve as a lesson in how we should keep our heads when those around us are just looking to validate their own choices by denigrating other's choices.

BTW I love my KM184s.  I don't see the need to seek the Holy Grail of km84's at this point.

I don't.  It's been years and years.  I think someone posted a link on this forum sometime in the past but I don't remember that thread title either.

I just remember watching that GS thread from the first day it started over there and it became a total shitshow after the big reveal, as they were apt to do.  I remember that the thread was heavily edited and a lot of posts removed by moderators at some point due to the usual GS mudslinging stuff, so even if it still exists, it's only a shadow of it's original glory.

Wouldn't it be great if audioscape or IAA came out with their own variation of the ViPRE? with 6 impedance options, of course.

Every old transformer coupled pre has a range of possible input impedances.  Everyone who wants me to rack something for them wants them all available, until they hear the cost.  I've never had anyone go through with it.  I never do it to anything of my own.  I have a couple things that came with 50/200 switches, and that's handy with 50 ohm Western Electric and Altec mics.  Handy to switch the crappy transformer in a Shure 300 ribbon to 50 out and let the preamp do most of the work.


It seems about as simple as whether you need a brighter mic or not. That was the primary user request (diffuse field use) leading to the EQ change.   Pop recording people get caught up in whether or not they like a transformer coupled signature in a mic, not much of anyone else does.  Ya know, couple a transformerless mic to a transformer pre, if you have to.  A different issue.  

The 'superior' off axis response is also regularly referred to, yet how many claiming it have put other high quality mics up for that particular comparison? Scheops MK4 and Sennheiser MKH40 are no slouches in that department.  One thing that really raises a question around that claim is applying it to both KM84 and KM86, which can't possibly have identical cardioid off axis patterns with respect to frequency.  They may both sound good, but that's separate from any analysis of well behaved cardioid patterns.  

Oktava MK-012 may be cool for some things, but man, every time I hook mine up, I marvel at the uncontrolled subsonic low end, ANY capsule across multiple sets.  Most shockmount-needin' mic ever.   

Big box of crayons out there to play with!  

I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing though. I’m taking about where the mic load is set with a load resistor only. Not the input impedance of the gain stage (plate or base or bias arrangement). Then it’s as simple as a switched in parallel resistor to ground.

Gotcha. Yeah I was talking about modern stuff. When you change taps you’re changing a lot more than the load reflected to the mic.

God, that was fun!! I think that's when I fully realised that a mic is a mic, more or less. A sdc will sound different to a ldc etc, but If using good parts and a solid mic design (which most companies do), there's really not a whole lot you can do to improve it noticeably for most normal recording situations (I guess recording a quiet baroque violin with stereo omni pairs in a reverb heavy hall puts certain demands on a mic, but I'm talking about regular spot miking). You can add different colorations to the sound, but that won't make it better, it will just make it different.

Jeff Porcaro would have made a good audio engineer. He had access to all the best drum kits he could ever want, for free none the less! Yet, his quote when asked which gear he preferred - "a drum is a drum" - I find rings true regarding audio gear, at least to a certain degree.

The KM184 is a great mic, on axis. Those of us, including you, with enough experience, love the KM84 for how forgiving it is and how similar the off-axis capture sounds to the on-axis. It's always useful and you don't lose a perfect take because the mic moved 1-2"

Yeah but what does he know? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. I keed, I keed.

I think mic choice can get very, very specific.  But then I guess you sort of do all that homework before hand, and then during an actual session, you move fast and use the things that have been pre-chosen.

But microphone choice seems to be one of the most critical things that "we" do, to get the "right" sound.  Whatever any one person thinks that might be.

+1 ..... I still won’t ever say that the difference isn’t worth the money for the great (vintage) mics, it’s just when we add gear, EQ and preamps to part of the equation, the possibilities open up, great combos can be discovered! Like the soundcraft here and 184. I bet the robust external power supply for the rails and 48v might be part of it. Or maybe it’s just careful design and great impedance matching. Or capacitors, or something! So many many variables at play.