I am assuming that you are talking about mk012's. Good mics for the price, but if you do decide to get them, get a matched pair from the soundroom, as they tend to have QC issues. They will do a decent job on both overheads and acoustics.

I agree,
I have a pair and they really are very good.
They are also very quiet for small diaphrams.

Bought two matched pairs (MC012) from the Soundroom - excellent mics and highly recommended. I have used them on drum OH and acoustic guitar, mandolin etc. They are great for these purposes. They really come alive with a good mic pre - I was less impressed with them through the built in pres on my Yamaha AW4416. Do NOT buy them from places like Guitar Center or Musicians Friend because I have heard of people getting poor quality mics from them. You'll pay more buying them from the Soundroom, but you will get a quality pair that will last. Good luck.

Rob

Yea I was talking about the MC012's and I was planning on purchasing from the soundroom. I was wondering what kinds of pres you guys used the mics with?

Originally posted by Rob Chittum:
Do NOT buy them from places like Guitar Center or Musicians Friend because I have heard of people getting poor quality mics from them. You'll pay more buying them from the Soundroom, but you will get a quality pair that will last. Good luck.

Rob

This is correct. GC gets "leftovers" of these mics and often they will not match up or sound alike. Rob is correct in this... Myself, I am suspicious of a company that would sell sub-standard product. I prefer to do biz with companies that reject the crap and only send out the good stuff! Kurt

I use a Sytek MP4xii mic pre with my Oktava's and am very happy with the sound quality that I am getting on acoustic guitar etc. I am really interested in the Sabatron pre that Kurt has recently reviewed, but just don't have the cash to buy one yet. If you've got the money to spend, it sounds like that would be the way to go, however for $800 the Sytek is a value and works well with these mics.

Rob

I have heard this "reject/leftover" story before (many times) about Oktava and I think it is a bunch of hooey. Check some of the discussions about this same topic at RAP or ProRec. I do not buy that ANY manufactorer is going to sell only their best microphones to one outlet and sell their "leftovers" to everyone else. If that is the case they must produce very few good ones because I am guessing Guitar Center sells a lot more mics than Sound Room. Russian QC may not be that great, but I doubt it is that bad. I bought mine from Guitar Center in Atlanta and mine is just dandy. Now that being said, I have talked with Taylor at Sound Room and they do check all their mics, I am sure GC does not, so there is cetainly that advantage with Sound Room. They also offer match pairs at the Sound Room. I have seen matched pairs offered at GC (on one occassion), but have no idea about the legitimacy or accuracy of their matching.

Tim T

Tim,
Do you have a pair or a single mic? If you just have one that would hardly qualify your statement. I am sure that any single mic would sound fine, but the comments that many members have made are regarding to consistency from mic to mic. All I can do is report what others have been saying in regards to this as I do not purchase cheap mics. My preference leans towards German and Japanese manufactures, although I am beginning to consider some of the Chinese designs. Thanks for your comment.. Kurt

Ok glad to see this topic, since I've been looking at the OKTAVA ML52 RIBBON MIC.
Has anyone tryed that one??

Hey Kurt,

I don't quite follow your logic about qualifying my statement if I just have one microphone (which I do). My statement was concerning the "leftover" comment you and others have made, which if you re-read my comments again, I think the point is pretty obvious. Unless Oktava makes many more "bad/leftover" microphones than good, this logic just could not hold true, based on Guitar Center selling/buying alot more units than Sound Room. Again, I do not think even Russian quality control is that bad. Consistency between mics at the Sound Room is going to be better because they have their mics tested, GC does not. This does not, by definition, mean that the GC Oktavas are leftovers. If you are going to buy a pair from GC it would definitely be a good idea to test drive 4 or 5 mics to see how well they match. If one does not want to go to that much trouble and does not mind spending a little more for having the matching done for you, the Sound Room is the way to go. Now do not get me wrong, I am not some GC lover. I have never actually been in one of their stores (my purchase was mail order). I also know that Sound Room offers excellent gear and has great service. When I screwed up my MC012 (bought at GC), Taylor at Sound Room offered to fix it for an very reasonable charge or walk me through the repair so that I could do it myself, which I did. To me, that speaks volumes about the guy and his establishment.

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, it just strikes me that we are getting into the Urban Legend aspect alittle bit when some people say that GC only sells leftovers.

Tim T

Must be nice not having to have to deal with cheap microphones.

Tim,
I didn't mean that as a slam at you I was just pointing out that if you only have one mic, it is hard to tell if it sounds close to other mics of the same type. I am sure it sounds fine for your purposes but is does it sound the same as another Oktiva? There is no way for you to know.

Yes GC sells more stuff than The Sound Room but their clientele is not as sophisticated or discerning and Guitar Center is not the only large retail outlet Oktiva distributes to. Other high end retail outlets get the good ones and GC gets the "leftovers", to use your terminology.

Yes, I agree this may be an “urban ledged” but in the end, what is wrong with alerting consumers to be aware? It can’t hurt to warn people to look for this. If it doesn’t hold true, they will find a matched pair right off the bat, and if it is true, they have been made aware and won’t regret not checking for it when they made their purchase. “Caveat Emptor” (Buyer Beware). Kurt

I recently bought a set of 012's from GC. I sat in their room and hand matched them (to the best of my ability) on a dual channel Avalon. I found most of then sounded 'pretty' similar not quite the same though (obviously) I do agree that they tend to have a greater range of inconsistency than say Nuemann but they were not so far from each other as to be completely unusable either. I tested about 8 mics total and found 2 pair that were quite similar to each other (meaning in blind situation (my GF was a/b ing for me ) I oculdn't tell which was which) the other 4 had a bit more (or less) self noise and a bit hotter or weaker signal but the overall impression i got was that they were fairly accurate as far as the freq response went. I don't claim to have as well of trained ears as some of you,but 4 mics I could not tell the difference between and another 4 that mostly only had signal strength differences (which isnt that hard to make up for) the only thing that bothered me about them was the fact that one distincly had ALOT more self noise than the rest. just my 2 cents for what they are worth Randy

Would'nt it be logical, if you are buying any microphones in pairs that you test for consistancy......

i purchased a pair of MC012's at GC in SOCAL and also took about 6 into the rec. room and compared them on a quality pre. they all sounded very close and two were the same enough for me to purchase.

I'm very happy with them on stereo Accoustic guit (will be using them for drumovers as well.....A bit of caution would be the following: one of the 6 had a problems with its input connector. first, the click pin from the mic chord did not line up with the mics click pin input (so there was no way of snapping the mic chord in. it was in thr wrong place) also, the actual mic was oval shaped at the bottom input so even if the pins lined up, the round chord would not have gone into the oval bottom of that mic....

the guy helping me thought that was really odd. I'm sure he just put that mic right back in stock so some else would buy it site unseen!

just really examine them. I got 2 out the door for $200.00 I'm very pleased!

From my research, they are great overall. They can lack clarity in mids compared to say the AT4051, and they won't sound nice if hit hard with high spl's.