These mics look really cool. I have no experience with Kel though.

well that's too bad. i loved my hm-1's ....

Just a guess, I bet whom ever built Kel overseas has been replaced with a new brand called [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.vertical…"]Vertical Microphones[/]="http://www.vertical…"]Vertical Microphones[/]

Wow! Those look great! They look much less expensively made than MXL and Samson. So they must be good? Assembled by quality Chinese slave children. Yeah... we all want those! I'd pay at least $80 for one of those. I don't want my 87's to get smashed by a loose wayward drumstick. No way! That's why, years ago, I bought a great pair of Samson's for $80 each. They look just like those. So you know they sound good.... for Chinese condenser microphones. Which are... actually usable. I'm not really putting them down. I have used them for recording. They're perfectly adequate. Certainly not special. Good general application stuff. And you don't freak out when it gets busted. So sometimes there really are good reasons to be using cheap microphones like these on your basic home project rock 'n roll studio. And they really won't do a bad job even if you use them in more fine arts oriented recording of choral groups, church services, civic orchestras and such. Of course some people pay me real money to make real recordings, I'll use real microphones. I don't go all warm and fuzzy just because something is new and black in color. Though it does have that appealing look. And if it looks right to ya? Likely it will sound right to ya. Because you know you paid huge money for that $80 microphone.

Placebo effect is provided free of charge. What a bargain!
Mx. Remy Ann David

A classic post I enjoyed Remy. Saying it right for those kids.(y)
I know our members like these, I had some but never used them because I had the same feeling. But, I buy and can't help buying products from Asia. What do we do, they are part of the fabric now. Literally.

Mojave, (an awesome mic btw that sounds better than my U87ai ) is also partially built in Asia, but assembled here.
I also think its basically the steel casing that is Asian.

Thanks Chris that's very nice of you. Glad you enjoyed.

I have nothing against any microphones from anywhere. You know me to be not your average recording engineer. Broadcasting can really corrupt ya. Especially back in the day. Where everything was just brute force industrial. And of course everything handmade. Which really made any kind of professional recording equipment, such as back in the early 1970s, just prohibitively expensive. Where, a single Scully stereo machine could out cost a new car. So the average person wasn't running out to buy those very often. Hey... I remember those very expensive brand-new Neumann 87's that I couldn't afford were at least $300. Maybe they were a bit more than that but not by much. So really, everybody has a good today. My one and only real gripe about the average run-of-the-mill Chinese condenser microphones is not that of the electronics nor the capsule. But of the Transformers they use. They don't have the clarity that one gets from a truly well-designed, cost no object, transformer. Which some microphone companies will give you the option of actually putting in a quality transformer for generally around a $100 option. Now that... that's something to really consider. That does take these modern mass-produced rather fine transducers to a whole new level. Approaching that of the high-priced products. Remember... while I may have been born Jewish, in spite of the fact that I'm an agnostic, you just can't pass up a great sale like that. I think there must be some kind of genetic thing about that?

I've heard those Mojave's and of course they are quite lovely sounding. That is a microphone I too have been looking at. Along with of course his Royer Ribbons. You know I'm going to have to get at least one pair of those in the not-too-distant future. And likely the passive ones as I do like the sound one gets, from passive ribbon microphones. However... not being able to shut off Phantom Power on my Neve console or API 3124 mixers, while I love to live dangerously, I wouldn't sweat so bad if I had an active ribbon that actually required phantom power. Also being consistently inconsistent, myself, that might mean I might just opt for the active types? Or... while I have been known to put down items like the " Cloud Lifter ", that device, would make perfect sense for me to use, to protect my passive, precious, ribbon microphones from possible death by electrocution from phantom power LOL. So... that's my easy way out. And you know I'm lazy. And then I get an active ribbon microphone with any ribbon microphone. Including my RCA 77 DX's.

On the subject of microphones, I saw something interesting, recently, I found a bit confusing? It's only based on my lack of knowledge about something I've generally been fairly knowledgeable about. Unfortunately, I don't know all my RCA ribbon microphone history, down to the finest details. I only know some. And that's dangerous LOL. But here is what I heard/read in a recent review of one of Wes Dooley's RCA ribbon knocked off the KU-4, I think? Now this was basically a ribbon microphone designed to be used on a boom, for the movie industry. The article stated that this particular RCA ribbon microphone was designed solely with a cardioid pattern. It then went on to say it used the same long geometry ribbon that was found in the BK-44's. Yet this particular RCA ribbon microphones body is more reminiscent of the 77 series and not the 44 series. The 77 series was a short geometry ribbon microphone in comparison to the longer geometry ribbon of the 44's. So I found that to be something of an inconsistency based upon the body? However, in my numerous talks with Wes, when I queried him about his 77 DX knockoff, he told me it really wasn't a 77 knockoff. Really? He told me that his 77, that he made, he installed the same long geometry ribbon that he made for his other 44 type versions. And that he could not seem to get his short geometry ribbon, to respond correctly. So he wasn't making any short geometry ribbon microphones as of that conversation a few years ago. At that point he was only offering his 77 not even with the long geometry ribbon. No. He was only offering it up as a dummy body so that one could install a condenser capsule of their choice. Maybe today, he's figured out how to make shorter geometry ribbon microphones? After all that's what's in the Beyer's single and double, short geometry ribbons. They figured out how to do that back in the 1950s of which those have barely changed. Wes is certainly a cool dude to talk to. Lots of fun. And that top hat of his... precious. So maybe that KU-4 just looks like a KU-4 but is really just a cardioid 44? I'll have to call him up and ask to find out what the real deal is about that? Really though... no one cares because they all sound great. You can't go wrong with any of them. Talk about classic tone. It don't get no better than that! Well it does but... when you're going for that ribbon sound that's the one our grandparents, parents and plenty of us, grew up hearing and don't want to be without.

Most younger folks would hear ribbon microphones are frequently turned off by them. They lack the zip and the wow factor that condenser and dynamic microphones offer up. Which makes a lot of younger engineers immediately retract from those muddy microphones. Those however that have become semi-disillusioned with digital sound as compared to the stuff their parents drove them crazy with as youngsters have found the warmth of ribbons to cure that nasty digital edge when you don't want that sound. And that's where ribbons really shine or perhaps not shine but glow. Without ever glowing like a tube. It just makes you glow. The performer glow. And everyone listening to it, glow.

I was once over radiated while standing in a cyclotron, that was down for service. So, I glow.

...??? I kind of get the feeling... that people want me to glow away now? Just let me put my ribbon microphone in my purse and I will.

Mx. Ribbon Ann David