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It's an old RCA ribbon mic. It has a square brownish/charcoalish body. The RCA logo isn't the big red round one, it's square. The ribbon inside goes over the top and down the back. It seems to be a figure eight pattern but also has three switch positions (patterns? impedance? low cut? wha?). When I switch the positions I can hear the low end getting thinner, but that could be from changing patterns or low cut. The cable is attached and the mic stand collar is directly attached to the mic. In other words, it doesn't have the U bar cradle that you see with the big cylindrical suppository shaped 77DX's or the square 44BX's. It is shaped more similarly to a 44BX, but smaller. A friend is letting me try it out (possibly buy). The only thing he knows about it is that he got it from a military guy at Los Alamos NM (where they built the bomb).

A model number and dollar value would be very helpful.

Comments

Tom Cram Mon, 04/23/2001 - 10:46

Gravity? Unbelievable :eek: . I'm new to the ribbon mic thing. I've rented Royers for sessions before and loved them, but concerning the whole RCA vintage ribbon thing I'm totally clueless.

I've noticed a pretty heavy proximity effect with this mic, is that normal? I also need to switch to super lo-z setting on my dbx786 in order to get good S/N ratio. How sensitive to SPL is an older ribbon like this?

So many questions... :confused:

Tom Cram Mon, 04/23/2001 - 13:35

Thanks Bear,

Harvey Gerst also referred me to Stephen Sank on another bbs. I'll get in touch with him. My buddy is selling this mic for next to nothing. I think I may have stumbled upon one of those gear deals that you hear stories about. You know, the old military stash in some forgotten warehouse. :D

harveygerst Mon, 04/23/2001 - 17:02

Originally posted by Cram:
Thanks Bear,

Harvey Gerst also referred me to Stephen Sank on another bbs. I'll get in touch with him. My buddy is selling this mic for next to nothing. I think I may have stumbled upon one of those gear deals that you hear stories about. You know, the old military stash in some forgotten warehouse. :DYou did, Tom. And huge proximity effect IS normal for a bi-directional ribbon mic. That's what the 3 position switch on the back is for. 1 is full range, 2 is a rolloff starting around 300 Hz, and 3 is a steeper rolloff at about the same point. Get everyone of them that you can - they're a great mic.