Here’s another microphone shootout. The mics tested here, in order of price:
1. Audio-Technica AT2005 (same as the ATR2100) ($50)
2. Heil PR40 ($325)
3. Electro-Voice RE20 ($450)
4. Telefunken M82 ($499)
5. Sennheiser MKH-416 ($999)
6. Neumann TLM67 ($2400)
Each mic was recorded through the same microphone preamp, a Millenia Media TD-1, into a Sony PCM-M10 digital recorder. The 44.1kHz wave file was imported into Adobe Audition and normalized. There is, of course, no equalization, compression, or other processing on any file. The test is completely unscientific. The files are not critically level matched. Don’t even think of trying to tell a difference between them by listening on your computer speaker.
To find out which mic is which, click on the next blog post. The password is “showme”. Please leave a comment as to which mic you liked best. Even better, send a tweet to @mcphillips to let me know. I have to tell you that the results of these tests always surprise me, as well.
Mic 1
Mic 2
Mic 3
Mic 4
Mic 5
Mic 6