VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Dayo]

If anyone doubts the value of tubes in your mic chain, have a listen to this. A recording made last year with our solid state gear, TC Mic pre, TLM 103 mic vs almost the same words spoken this morning through the Fearn VT1 and Lawson L47.

[/url]http://www.divshare.com/download/8555265-[url]

There is no processing whatsover on either, but I did clean up a couple of mouth noises. I must admit that the solid state version is far from the best recording I've ever made, but, that aside, I'm certain you'll agree it's a night and day difference. When you add any processing to either, the result is even more dramatic.[/url]

[Dayo]

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[Lance Blair]

I don't think the sound improvement you're hearing is just because of tubes. Lawson and Fearn simply make better gear than what you had before.

My TLM 103 is being shipped off to a better home today. No matter what I did, tube pres, EQ, room acoustics...that mic is just weak at 200Hz and 1kHz. So it's just a no-go as a male vocal mic, imo...and it's got this harsh edge that just won't go away. I've replaced it with a $350 mic that I really like (CS5) and it just blew the 103 away. That's the point we are with mic manufacturing right now. The 103 came out twelve years ago. It's a dinosaur (even though the new 103D is getting good reviews). On a male, the 103 doesn't work unless you eat the darn thing and then you get other problems. Listen to the 103 at the transom.org shootout. It sounds great on the boomy male, but horrid on the more normal male voice. The AKG 3000 sounds better on him.

Two of my favorite singers, Cee-Lo and Imogen Heap use the 103. For those that don't know, the former is a male and Imogen is female. The TLM 103 is fantastic on her (although she just switched away from it...hmm) but I think it's really thin on Cee-Lo even though he's got a massive voice. Cee-Lo sounds better live when he's using Sennheiser and Shure dynamics than when he's using the 103 in the studio.

If you take Lawson's solid state mics and put it into a John Hardy solid state preamp, you will find it kicks the 103-TC chain to the curbside. It's not a solid-state vs. tube issue to me.
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