Hi all;

I'd like to start a sane, professional, civil discussion on the state (and spate) of ribbon mics out there available today. It seems like every time I turn around, there's a bunch of new ones availabe - some brands I've just started hearing about, some even newer than that.

In no particular order, and no particular model, I'd be interested in reading about folk's experiences with these, including bang for the buck, reliability, real-world results, preamp issues, etc. etc. (Anything is fair game, as long as your statements are provable or at least based on something tangible. Gut reactions are OK too, but no needless bashing or trash talking! Hahaha)

I've just come across some brands like Shiny Box,Cascade, (seem to have a competitor to the SF-12 going on, too!) Tripps-Crowly, and many other newcomers I can't recall at the moment. (Add your favorite here; seems like every time I look at ribbons for sale on Ebay, there's yet another strange new brand popping up.)

I'm sure a lot of these have at least something of a far-eastern heritage, let alone country of origin, but I always keep an open mind.

How about you? Any favorites? Dogs? Good experiences, bad ones? Mainly, I'd like to know the real-world difference between the big guys and the new upstarts. They can't all be as good as they claim, yet I'm sure there's actually a lot of very good and quite usuable mid-level new ribbons out there.

Anyone?