Peluso 22 251 - you wouldn't believe...

[RuudNL]

Yes, it is often a psychologic effect: people want to hear the money they have spent...
Some time ago I did an A/B comparison with one of my own microphones and a Telefunken ELA M251.
Six people attended the microphone test and almost all thought that there was no audible difference.
Except the owner of the ELA M251! ($10.000 + )
He thought the ELA M 251 had a little more detail. He was the only one who heard that... 

 

[Khron]

Confirmation bias is an utter b*tch, ain't it?..  ;D

PS: That A/B test wasn't (double) blind, was it?

 

[granger.frederic]

Yes, it is often a psychologic effect: people want to hear the money they have spent...
Some time ago I did an A/B comparison with one of my own microphones and a Telefunken ELA M251.
Six people attended the microphone test and almost all thought that there was no audible difference.
Except the owner of the ELA M251! ($10.000 + )
He thought the ELA M 251 had a little more detail. He was the only one who heard that... 

Well , there you go !
you're selling and promote your own microphones production, in this forum...
you pretend that your mics are as good as elam 251 TFK USA...for a small fraction of the price...
oh, you're surely a genius, a real mic guru...
i hope you'll have the same commercial success...
you have your own certainties , however, i have mine...

you say that i like a mic because it is expensive..oh boy ???

i prefer to focus on what makes a real good mic, and why it sounds like a real good mic...
i always tried to explain my points of view in this forum, this topic, for free, and for what it worth...

and it is not directly/psychologically price related :

 

[granger.frederic]

i would add that i have the feeling that , since a year or two in this forum, every time that someone try to explain his own experience or share his knowledge, if it don't match with the beliefs (or commercial interests) of a few persons, then, we have caricatures, personal attacks or traps...

this was not the initial tone of this very nice forum

my 2 cents

 

[KrIVIUM2323]

Fred don t be paranoid!
Ruud isn t promoting one of his mic, as you don t have a ref of the mic in question, neither a price...
Because Ruud build and sell mic for living should make him quiet about his experience or his point of view?

Come on... this is not fair for him or other 'manufacturers'! I personnaly consider that having professional manufacturer exchanging with hobbyist is a chance even if we sometimes have divergent opinions or experience. In the end all that would happen is that he probably would notshare in there and what would be gained from that? And honestly, trying to sell his own products to people building their own... maybe he could find better audience for that purpose elsewhere...
Sharing experience is always interesting... even if i must say i m not convinced by this example, this A/B haven t probably been double blind.
From my own experience the owner of the elam could well be right because he is used to the sound of his mic and may hear details not immediately audible to people not acustomed/used to it. Only double blind a/b is really definitive.

 

[granger.frederic]

how can i be paranoid ?
he puts a weblink directly on his mic shop, on every post...

if you think that "high price thus sounds good" characterizes me and is a professional opinion, then i give up :-X

for the bad atmosphere, please read the posts here and in nearly all topics since a year a two...

it is really boring as hell  :-\

 

[KrIVIUM2323]

I do read post Fred since 2003/2004 when i registered in the forum.

Yours (post) are interesting and you have very strong opinions of what shoul be done for good sound and i strongly respect that and most of the time i agree, but others point of view are as interesting as yours and at the end of the day this is the multiple points of view and experience which are interesting.

For me the thing which is boring is the war of ego.
I personaly don t care about which is right or wrong and i do my own experiment and come to my own conclusions.. as anyone here i think.

About self promoting,... well yes sometime it happens and then what? It is easy to read messages from peoples and have an idea of the motivations of this people. We are adults with brain and can make our own conclusions.

Last thing, about Ruud s mic, there is an online shoutout with an elam and Ruud's own mic and all i can say is that for me they don t sound identical. The Elam seems 'veiled' in this video and i m pretty sure i could identify it in double blind. Is it better than the 251, is it worse? It ll depend of source and what the user want in the end...
But definately they are not the same in my view. Is Ruud claiming in that video that it is better? No. You be the judge and that is fine.

Edit: as you edited your last post, here is my answer to this, i remember a post from you where you showed a picture of a sm7 saying this is a nice cheap vocal mic... and i do agree.  Don t give up Fred, your view is interesting but accept others can have different opinions from yours without taking it personal.
Peace.

 

[kingkorg]

The only reason i joined this forum is that people here use measurement, acurate names for specific things, call things in numbers and values. Unlike 99% other forums.

Every time discussion turns into: this sounds "better, warmer, vintage, richer" i think of slutty forum that contributed to huge amount of people's wasted time in search for something that doesn't exist and biggest misconceptions in audio world ever.

 

[kooma]

The only reason i joined this forum is that people here use measuring, acurate names for specific things, call things in numbers and values. Unlike 99% other forums.

Every time discussion turns into: this sounds "better, warmer, vintage, richer" i think of slutty forum that contributed to huge amount of people's wasted time in search for something that doesn't exist and biggest misconceptions in audio world ever.

If there would still be "like"- button, I would press it.

 

[Khron]

Couldn't have said it better myself

But hey, "measuring" and "the audio world" aren't supposed to meet : Otherwise, all the "magic" goes away... ;D

The only reason i joined this forum is that people here use measuring, acurate names for specific things, call things in numbers and values. Unlike 99% other forums.

Every time discussion turns into: this sounds "better, warmer, vintage, richer" i think of slutty forum that contributed to huge amount of people's wasted time in search for something that doesn't exist and biggest misconceptions in audio world ever.

 

[kingkorg]

I just had to find this on my drive. This is example from a shootout i did about 6 months ago, when i joined forum. This is SM PRO MC03 (NADY TCM 1050) with 797 audio k67 capsule, usual mods, stock transformer and 470pf cap for HF roll off, chinese 12AY7, bought with destroyed capsule, total worth of project 100 bucks vs TELEFUNKEN CU29 Copperhead i borrowed from a friend . Identical conditions. I get to chose patterns additionally on SM Pro.

SM Pro
https://app.box.com/s/dblvkhqjgldnx73qwh01397vmcuotlkm

Telefunken
https://app.box.com/s/3nlobihdgltvk19aly734ri98euylzy3

Feel free to import them in a DAW, do a null test, put in a loop and listen. Pay attention to noise Telefunken has in quiet parts, pay attention what it does to hihat, and wonder where low end disappeared.

 

[Banzai]

There's always a reason why some products cost 10 times more. Some cost 10 times more to build, and some make 10 times more profit for the builder.

Up to everyone to tell the difference for themselves.

 

[granger.frederic]

some guys pretend that installing Gibson pickups on an Epiphone sounds like the real one...
it's exactly the same with microphone, worse in fact (impedance is 30 times higher minimum....)
i'm saying that the differences are also in the "lutherie", not only in the electronics...
in the real Elam251, everything is encapsulated with a non resonant material, the capsule holder damps much more, the tube is damped with silent blocks, the metal body is damped with two lateral springs, point to point everywhere, the headbascket has less resonnances, the body has less resonnances,the directivity is selected by a switch not relays or variable tension, better PSU noise, better wirings, etc, etc...
ALL that kind of details (which are not details in fact) have a price...

 

[granger.frederic]

look at this

 

[granger.frederic]

not equivalent for me
but no offence to the manufacturer (not the same price range) and i could choose many other examples...

 

[granger.frederic]

for example

 

[granger.frederic]

or (better but not really equivalent)

 

[granger.frederic]

i'm not saying that they're bad mics, only that their prices are calculated in relation with their performances and their build technology...
no mistery here !
i just want to help people to point other technical aspects , in order to help them to decide what mic they want to buy, mod or build.
Peace !  :-*

 

[Khron]

Apples, meet oranges

 

[KrIVIUM2323]

Hi,

The only reason i joined this forum is that people here use measuring, acurate names for specific things, call things in numbers and values. Unlike 99% other forums.

Every time discussion turns into: this sounds "better, warmer, vintage, richer" i think of slutty forum that contributed to huge amount of people's wasted time in search for something that doesn't exist and biggest misconceptions in audio world ever.

Was this comment about my use of the word 'veiled' in a previous comment? If yes ok i'll be more precise and use technical terms:
i do think Ruud's mic have a different transient behavior than the Elam. I suppose this is related to the capsule differences, Ruud's mic using 3 microns diaphragm (if i'm not mistaken) and not using tube electronics (probably less miller effect and no out transformer to modify transients).

I understand your comments guys and like you i like the overall approach here but hey... we record human performances with feelings and we use langage to explain what we feel, this is mandatory waiting for a way to have direct access to our brains and share sensations without language barrier.

Feelings are difficults to explain with numbers don't you agree?  :

And some FACTS are difficults to quantify (probably because things to measure to have answer are not obviously known -anyway by me).

How would you explain by numbers the differences that can be heard between different resistor technology in tube mic for anode and cathode, or the effect of lowering the resistance of input grid resistor in tube mic about the outcome in sound for example (except the increase in noise level)?

If you have found a better way that using non ideal verbal description please let me know i'll be very happy to use it!  
 

Apples, meet oranges

Yes but... using a reference to a name imply comparaison to the original, and correct me if i'm mistaken but this is the wole point of this thread no?

And Frederic stated :

not equivalent for me
but no offence to the manufacturer (not the same price range) and i could choose many other examples...

I do think this is obvious.