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[rick-slo]

piedpiper wrote on Fri, 20 November 2009 17:09

I've heard complaints that the KM-69 is overly bright, as in brighter than a good KM84. Any thoughts there? And Fletcher, how would you describe your "sense of aesthetic" in relation to the KM-69? And how would you describe the difference between the C-42, the KM-69 and the ELA M 260? Thanks.

I had a pair of KM-69s I tried out for recording acoustic guitar. It is opposite of bright sounding but is quite warm and fat sounding but at the expense of some loss of detailed sound. I liked them but they had more self noise than I like and returned them.
Very good mikes in this price range that I use for this purpose are Gefell M300s but there are so many different mikes that can give excellent results with the proper equipment setup and room acoustics.

[piedpiper]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Still waiting for Fletcher to get more specific.

[Fibes]

piedpiper wrote on Wed, 25 November 2009 01:04

Thanks for your thoughts. Still waiting for Fletcher to get more specific.

I own KM-69 # 10 and 12 and find them to be my go to sdcs for many sources. They do have a bit of self noise that can rear its head on very soft sources but these mics make me, against my will, use the buzzword "silky" to describe them.

I own a pair of 184s that I use for live stuff as back up for the KM-69s where I wouldn't drag my SM-2. I found the C-42 too close to the 184s to own both although if i had to do it over the C-42s would be the ones I'd grab. The Chameleon TS-1 is great too but my next SDC is prolly gonna be a pair of E22s's since they fit into an alternate category.

Oh, and the new AKG 451s arent as bad as a lot of folks would lead you to believe, I've heard more broken sounding old ones as of late than good ones so be careful. Don't get me wrong i prefer the 451EB but for most applications I usually fall into the "source and placement" is more important to the outcome camp.

[sdelsolray]

A SDC that deserves an audition is 3 Sigma Chi mics.  It's a modular system, with a nice low noise mic amp.  There are card, hyper, and 2 omni SD caps and 4 different LD caps available.

I gamma tested these mics and compared them with mic pairs I own and use - Gefell M295, Gefell M294, Schoeps CMC6/MK41, Peluso P28 and Oktava Mc-012 (Dorsey mod).  I only record solo fingerstyle acoustic and classical guitar, so my application is limited.  Nonetheless, the 3 Sigma Chi mics were very pleasing.

[piedpiper]

I ran across this on a KM84 thread on Gearslutz, re: the KM-69:

Fletcher: "Obviously I have experience with them... but I'll leave it to one of the other hundreds of owners to do the descriptive stuff... I would be quite biased in my praise of the product.

What I will say is that the design goal was to get the "butterscotch" of the mid-range of a KM-84 without the "hard as a coffin nail" elements of the KM-184... with a tad of extra sparkle around 12kHz as my original goal for them was Hi-Hat.

Turned out they work in a myriad of applications [for me and my world... YMMV]."

[Schallfeldnebel]

A large part of the typical sound of the neumann KM84 comes from the transformer inside. I cannot find anything on the web or this thread if the KM-69 is also equipped with a transformer.

[compasspnt]

I THINK that the 69 does have a transformer...will check and see.

[Fibes]

compasspnt wrote on Sat, 16 January 2010 11:58

I THINK that the 69 does have a transformer...will check and see.

One from Kansas.

[Schallfeldnebel]

Fibes wrote on Sun, 17 January 2010 04:19

compasspnt wrote on Sat, 16 January 2010 11:58 I THINK that the 69 does have a transformer...will check and see. One from Kansas.

Do you mean this microphone has a transformer on board from Oliver?

[Fletcher]

Yup.  Oliver makes the transformer... and does a damn good job of it!!!  I think the damn thing is absolutely stunning sounding!!

[Schallfeldnebel]

Fletcher wrote on Fri, 22 January 2010 13:06

Yup.  Oliver makes the transformer... and does a damn good job of it!!!  I think the damn thing is absolutely stunning sounding!!

Again for me a proof that part of the vintage sound comes from the audio-transformers. Audio-transformers no longer are used for galvanic seperation only, but have become part of the colour palette the recording engineer uses to influence sound.

SFN