Wordsushi said:
It's funny, because the conversation and his claim came about because I stopped by the MicParts booth at NAMM and told Matt I had paired his 84-circuit with Guosheng's really sweet flat 87 hybrid capsule and was pleased with how 87-ish it sounded, and he wouldn't hear of it and went on about how his 87 capsule was flat-ish. I've never actually heard the MP 87 in person. I did get a free t-shirt though. LOL. However, I have to say that it does sound like this new WGT capsule is less hyped than I was expecting. I'm pleased with it for what it is and will probably pick up a few more. YMMV.
It's the usual Chinese one. I think it's nearly identical to the AK67 from Advanced Audio as far as the high frequency boost. I think that they're better than ones you see in the cheap MXLs, those 32mm ones with the metal rings instead of white plastic ones iSK and 797 use. They are flatter than the ones that have the huge +10 dB peak around 9KHz, but that's about it.
I have to say though, Matt's reaction doesn't surprise me. In my interactions, as well as some of the stuff over on RecordingHacks, and his general statements I've seen make give me the impression that he's very arrogant. One of my favorite things I've seen are the measurements of his RK87 in the MXL V67G. Yes it was a bit darker, but the high end boost was really only decreased by what looked like 1 dB. Also there's a video where he's giving some kind of lecture on capsule types and could not accept that his RK12 is not a CK12 capsule when KingKorg mentioned in a comment that the construction is very similar to the K67. What's crazy is how much people have faith in the crap he says. Seriously Matt, you're not some mystical mic guru, you're a guy who's rebranding Chinese capsules and selling mic PCB kits, many of which have compromises. There's no reason why they need internal switches that require us to open up the mic everytime we want to change the pattern or turn or a pad (there's also no reason why it has to only be one switch either), and there's no reason the S3 kits can't have 3 switches except for the fact that they're basically just MXL 770 bodies. There's no reason he can't use something like the Apex/Feilo bodies used by Advanced Audio (the 415 is pretty small, perfect for a transformerless multipattern mic build) which would actually allow us to build a good mic that doesn't compromise anything. Especially when you consider that the kits are almost $500. Hell, Alctron, iSK, Apex, and MXL have more functional mic designs (granted Alex and MXL use K67s without de-emphasis a lot), and the actual manufacturers of the RK12 would know (but may not admit) that it's not a proper CK12 design. Also it's absolutely ridiculous that he actually suggested the RK87 in a KM84 circuit, unless you're using the corrective EQ that some of his versions of the circuit have, but still it's the typical Chinese K67 copy, just not the most bottom of the barrel one.
If you want a dirt cheap "C414" just get a CAD M179. Get a pair for what the Mic-Parts S3-12 kit costs. It'll probably sound better too.
My first experience with WGTCenter was good, capsule came from China and arrived within the month (took about 3 weeks).
Second experience, they mailed it out a month late according to their own supplied tracking link, and it was shipped from China even though I ordered it from the US warehouse.