I recently had the opportunity to test one of the Superlux R102 ribbon mics that was released last year.\u00a0\u00a0 This mic was my first experience with a ribbon microphone.\u00a0 As many readers, I had looked at ribbons with a bit of mystique as far as their sound reputation.\u00a0 Likewise, my head had been full of the issues of using a ribbon; the need for lots of gain, the high cost and the fragility.\u00a0 Frankly, at a cost of only around $150 (street), I was more than a little skeptical.<\/p>\n
From a technical perspective, the mic is surprising.\u00a0 It comes packaged in a very sturdy, well padded case.\u00a0 It includes a metal yoke mount and a cable.\u00a0 My understanding is that the cable is only foil shielded, but as it is a standard XLR, you are free to use you own higher quality cable, if desired.\u00a0 The mic itself is a solidly built metal body and grill, and was surprisingly heavy.\u00a0 You definitely want to use a stand that has a wide enough and\/or heavy enough base to avoid tipping.\u00a0 There is a spider mount available, but it was not included in my evaluation unit.<\/p>\n
There are two issues that deserve special mention in the design of this mic.\u00a0 First, the ribbon is in a field\u00a0serviceable\u00a0module.\u00a0 This means that all you have to do to replace a ribbon is order the replacement, open the mic and swap the part.\u00a0 You won’t have to send it out for re-ribboning.\u00a0 The second point to note is that this ribbon requires phantom power.\u00a0 This is the exact opposite of a typical ribbon mic.\u00a0 Normally, phantom power is the death of a ribbon mic, but in this case it is required to power the active electronics in the mic.\u00a0 Also note that as a result, the is no external power or amplifier with this mic.<\/p>\n
In use, the mic was no more difficult than a normal\u00a0condenser\u00a0\u00a0 The yoke mount included allow easy and secure placement.\u00a0 Due to the weight, I did make sure that I had a bit of extra weight on the stands – just in case.\u00a0 I found that it did want a bit more gain than most of the large diaphragm\u00a0condensers\u00a0I compared it against, but I still set the gain lower than I would have had for a dynamic mic.\u00a0 As with all ribbon mics, the R102 is a figure eight pattern.\u00a0 I didn’t notice a significant difference between the front and back lobes.<\/p>\n
I was able to test the mic in a variety of environments and against a variety of mics.\u00a0 I’ll note the specific configurations for each test.\u00a0 My evaluations are not against other ribbons – most of us (myself included) don’t have access to a suite of Coles or RCA’s or AEA’s – but hopefully this will make the comparisons a bit more realistic and less “theoretical.”<\/p>\n
My first test was using a male bass voice with spoken word.\u00a0 This voice was has worked professionally radio and voiceover.\u00a0 It was tested using Yamaha MG series preamps and compared to an AKG C414.\u00a0 The AKG captured all the richness and detail of his voice.\u00a0 It was very clean and accurate.\u00a0 I figured it would be no contest. \u00a0Surprise!\u00a0 True, it did not have quite as much detail, but there was a warmth and smoothness that blew away both me and the artist.\u00a0 The R102 outdid a studio mic that was nearly 10x the price.\u00a0 We thought it was a fluke, but a second recording was just as superior.<\/p>\n
I next tried it on a soprano – also a trained voice.\u00a0 I also tried this test against the C414.\u00a0 I also compared it to the Superlux Pro238mkII.\u00a0 This time I used it on my Tascam board, which has nice pre’s.\u00a0 We recorded “Love In Any Language” which pushes the full range of the vocalist (and yes, my wife *can* hit the high C).\u00a0 While recording, I was listening in the headphones, and heard the same smoothness and warmth as before.\u00a0 Against the Pro238mkII it was warmer, smoother and richer, as I expected.\u00a0 It did share that pleasant darkness that seems to be a trademark of the Superlux mics I’ve tested lately.\u00a0 In saying this, remember the Pro238 is a great mic – the one we tested\u00a0against\u00a0is my wife’s personal vocal mic.\u00a0 Against the AKG C414, my wife’s comment sums it up, “That dishonest.\u00a0 I don’t sound that good.”\u00a0 Again, the R102 beat the C414 for warmth and smoothness.\u00a0 In this test, I made another\u00a0interesting\u00a0discovery about the R102: it’s not quite as responsive as the C414.\u00a0 This did not mean that I didn’t capture the full sound, rather it meant that the mic was more forgiving.\u00a0 One downside of the C414 is its extreme accuracy.\u00a0 If there is the slightest variation in your intonation, it goes to tape.\u00a0 The Superlux did not have this behavior.\u00a0 It recorded faithfully, but without the irritating “oopses” you get when\u00a0sight reading\u00a0a difficult song.<\/p>\n
Overall, I was *extremely* impressed by the R102 on voice.\u00a0 I plan to get one of my own for vocals, not because of price, but because it sounds so darn good.<\/p>\n
Next, still on the Tascam board, I tested it on the bassoon against the AKG C414.\u00a0 Now, for those who don’t know, the bassoon is a duecedy tricky instrument to mic.\u00a0 It is long, dark and\u00a0throws\u00a0harmonics all over the place.\u00a0 Here, the R102 pretty much fell apart.\u00a0 The slower response and “thickness” that is part of the ribbon’s nature simply couldn’t handle the all the harmonics that a bassoon puts out and the result was a very muddy, cluttered recording\u00a0 By contrast, the C414 caught the full sound of the bassoon, included the darkness and “ring” of a top-end instrument without the slightest trace of mud.\u00a0 To do a bit of extrapolation, my wife double on sax and generally I find that if I like a mic on bassoon, I like it on sax.\u00a0 If I don’t like it on bassoon, I generally don’t like it on sax.\u00a0 So, I would probably not even try the R102 on sax.\u00a0 I have since heard a demo recording on a tenor sax and found that it did seem a bit muddier than my ear cares for.\u00a0 The one woodwind that I would be curious about its sound is the clarinet.\u00a0 I suspect the R102 may do well on the clarinet, particularly in a solo jazz or blue setting.\u00a0 If I get the opportunity to test a clarinet. I will pass along my thoughts.<\/p>\n
The last test was on acoustic guitar.\u00a0 This test was done with Presonus preamps on a Mac.\u00a0 I A-B tested against the AKG C414, a Rode NTK and the Superlux S241. \u00a0The Guitar was a Taylor Concert Grand.\u00a0 We did not use the built-in pre of the guitar.\u00a0 Let’s rule out the Rode right now.\u00a0 The sound was harsh and one-dimensional.\u00a0 It did not suit guitar at all.\u00a0 The AKG C414 was simply amazing, which was to be expected.\u00a0 It caught the full sound of the instrument with a near perfect balance between attack, swell and decay.\u00a0 The R102 by contrast was incredibly smooth.\u00a0 It gave the guitar an almost “Les Paul”-ish sound.\u00a0 It was a very mellow, nice sound.\u00a0 There was little to no bite in the attack and the chords just flowed from one to another.\u00a0 Compared to the S241, the R102 had a richer, thicker (but not muddy) sound.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It had a better sustain and decay, and was (of course) much smoother.\u00a0 The S241 did capture the attack much better.\u00a0 While I did like the C414 better, I would certainly not reject the R102 by any means!\u00a0 Just one more note.\u00a0 A common technique when recording guitar is to simultaneously record the line out, if you have a built-in pre-amp or even to use a second mic.\u00a0 In the case of the R102, when combined with the S241 the results were jaw dropping.\u00a0 The clarity and attack of the instrument mic combined perfectly with the rich smoothness of the ribbon mic to give a sound that was simply\u00a0beautiful\u00a0\u00a0 I would fully expect the same results if I had used the guitar’s own pre.\u00a0 I still liked the C414 better, but the combo was good enough to make even a picky guitarist quite happy.\u00a0 Happy enough that the R102 ended up with her.\u00a0 She additionally reports that she has had excellent results with it in recording her gospel trio.<\/p>\n
To summarize, the Superlux R102 ribbon mic is an excellent sounding and well built mic.\u00a0 It excels in recording vocals doing a consistently superior job to my AKG C414. It also did an outstanding job on guitar alone and with a secondary mic, depending on the particular sound you are trying to get.\u00a0 On winds, however, it sounded too muddy for me to want to use.\u00a0 If you want to experience the unique pleasures of a ribbon mic without breaking your bank account, or if you want a good vocal or guitar recording mic at an amazing price, you really want to give this mic a close look.\u00a0 And as always, don’t let this or any review replace your own ears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I recently had the opportunity to test one of the Superlux R102 ribbon mics that was released last year.\u00a0\u00a0 This mic was my first experience with a ribbon microphone.\u00a0 As many readers, I had looked at ribbons with a bit of mystique as far as their sound reputation.\u00a0 Likewise, my head had been full of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ymfK-2x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":796,"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thechristiangeek.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}