differences between AKG C 414 B-XL or AKG C 414B XLII????

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:07 am

I'm looking at picking up one of these mics for vocals and guitar and am hoping I can get some information as to what the differences these two versions are? I looked back in the forum and couldn't find anything even though I swear RemyRAD talked about it at one point. I've got both mics at a really good price within about $5 of each other and just wondered which one I should choose. I was going to look into a Nuemann mic for better vocals from my NT2 that I have now. I believe that the AKG C414 might be an upgrade from some of the more mid grade Nuemann mics in the $1400 price range. Plus I was under the assumption that you can use the C414 for guitars too similarly to the Sennheiser e609. Maybe one of these are more applicable to what I need to use it for. I've done some research on these mics but don't understand the differences between these two versions of the C414.

thanks to all,
CB Smith

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:34 pm

http://www.akg-acoustics.com/site/powerslave,id,2,nodeid,2,pcategory,4,_language,EN.html

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:15 am

backinthelab wrote:

http://www.akg-acoustics.com/site/powerslave,id,2,nodeid,2,pcategory,4,_language,EN.html

Thanks for the information. I've read that before but it truly doesn't tell the tale of what I'm looking for. For instance, it states that the B-XLS is "Large-diaphragm condenser microphone for universal applications" and the B-XLII is "Large-diaphragm condenser microphone, especially for recording of solo vocals and solo instruments". Wouldn't universal applications and solo instruments be basically the same thing. So in other words, you shouldn't use the B-XLII for say micing a room or overheads and yet they sell them in matched pairs? Strange. The main difference between the two is that the B-XLII is transformerless and the B-XLS is ultra-linear but I'm not sure how these differences change the sound of the mic. It would be so much easier to try these out and A-B them but of course here where I'm at that isn't an option. In fact, in order to get them I have to put money down just to get it. Thanks again and if anything knows more about these differences it would be greatly appreciated.

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:18 pm

Charles, the basic difference between these 2 different 414 series of microphones is that the "B-XLS" & "B-ULS" versus the "TLII" style are basically two factors. The XLS & ULS featured a newer capsule design and were still transformer coupled outputs. It yielded a much flatter response, which wasn't exactly reminiscent of the original C12 tube version which later became the first 414. The TLII not only stood for "Transformerless" output but utilized an older capsule design, more reminiscent of the original C12, which had a far more pronounced midrange bump and high-frequency peak, which is what made it so popular to begin with. I would never turn down a TLII nor would I restrict its use to the mentioned suggestions as we have used those very microphones for much of AKG's production run throughout the years. People started complaining when they got them the newer, flatter Ultra Linear series, since they no longer sounded like the original C12/414. So they came out with the TLII with its slightly different capsule and capsule sound characteristics to try to keep everybody happy and make their microphone everything to everybody.

I wouldn't necessarily try to use a dissimilar pair for a stereo pickup? They are substantially different sounding enough that the equalizer on your console will not compensate for the differences in tonality.

414 lover
Ms. Remy Ann David

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