Topic: Schoeps or AKG ?

[jkbyram]

It looks like in the original post that you answered the question for yourself already.  If the AKG's sounded better to you in every sample than you should buy AKG.  Everyone has their own opinion of what sounds good and if that is what sounded the best to you then go get them.  Personal preference is what influenced me to get my AKG's, I liked that sound the best. I didn't go for the "If it cost more, It must be better" way of thinking,  I listened like you did and bought what sounded good to me.

[hi and lo]

It looks like in the original post that you answered the question for yourself already.  If the AKG's sounded better to you in every sample than you should buy AKG.

Ummm, no. You cannot listen to LMA sources in a vacuum to make these important buying decisions. It was better in the days of patching when you could be at the show and see first hand how a rig was run, but w/o any first hand knowlege of how the rig was run you are just asking for buyers remorse.

[eclark]

I've got an ISO in the Yard Sale right now.. I think the 460s fit my budget right now.. but I really want the 480s. Hope someone send me a sweet deal on the 480s! The purpose of this thread isn't to influence my buying decision, only to support it! haha j/k!

Hopefully other people can use this thread as a source of information. No one seemed to address my comment at the top of page 3 though.

What makes these mics unique? What about the internals? transformers vs transformer-less? What makes these mics SO unique?

[vanark]

Last fall, I had bought a set of 460's with CK61 caps for around what I think you are looking to pay and then I had a sweet pair of 480's with CK61 fall into my lap for the same price as the 460's.  So, miracles do happen.

[Scooter123]

AKG are full bodied, and there may be problems with Stealth
My Mk4 > Actives > Nbox are a small footprint solution

AKG, to me ears, sound "accurate" and "crisp"  A negative way of saying the same thing is they sound tinny. 
Mk4, to me sounds "warm".  A negative way of saying the same thing is "bassy" or boomy"

I used Church and SP mikes for over 18 months while I listened to, and evaluated, the best sounding shows I could find on The Dime.  I knew I was going to drop a bundle, and I wanted to be methodical about it.  And I drew up a list.  Out of about 100 shows which were fantastic, about 40 of them were Schoeps mk4, and another 30 of them were Neumanns KM140-150s, the rest were a hodge podge of DPA, AKGs and even some internal Zoom shows.  Once I looked at that list, I picked Schoeps for the smaller footprint vs Neumanns.  I've been running them for about 3 years now. 

On bass heavy shows, I just run highpass at 60htz sometimes 80htz, and that solves the problem 90% of the time. 

I can't afford two rigs, but if I could, my second rig would be KM150s > Preamp > Recorder. 

If you've already evaluated the mikes then you've probably made your decision.

[page]

It looks like in the original post that you answered the question for yourself already.  If the AKG's sounded better to you in every sample than you should buy AKG.

Ummm, no. You cannot listen to LMA sources in a vacuum to make these important buying decisions. It was better in the days of patching when you could be at the show and see first hand how a rig was run, but w/o any first hand knowlege of how the rig was run you are just asking for buyers remorse.

I'm going to split the difference and say that listening to the LMA is beneficial, but it won't tell you lots of things that you might expect. I thought the milab vm44s were bass anemic but every now and then I'd hear a tape that was the normal boom/bass that I was accustomed to, none were EQed, but it was a different environment. It took a lot of effort to figure out the sound signature and that takes experience.

I've heard recordings made with my beyers that were similarly bright and brittle, and recordings which have so much bass it makes your genitals rattle. Without being there to hear the environment and see the setup, it's tough (but do-able given enough recordings).

What makes these mics unique? What about the internals? transformers vs transformer-less? What makes these mics SO unique?

the 460s have transformers, but most professional SD mics nowadays are transformerless. The magic is in the caps. 

[burris]

If you can afford and live with the sound of either then you should get Schoeps.  For the sole reason that AKG doesn't make "active cables" to separate capsules from the bodies or make an equivalent to the CCM models.  Weigh the benefits of a lightweight, easy to setup and teardown rig, with comprehensive accessories available over a marginal improvement in sound at best.  No matter what you're trying to do, Schoeps makes capsules and accessories to do it discreetly and professionally.  A nice, tight, professional looking rig goes a long way with venue managers and other people that might want to shut you down.

Active cables and the specific stereo bars make setup and teardown way faster and easier than a pair of full mics on a generic stereo bar.  That can make the difference between getting the whole show and missing the first couple of minutes.  Either because you were late getting in because of a huge clusterfuck outside, or because you took too long tearing down from the previous show to get to the next one on time (Jazzfest!!)  Also consider the size and mass of mics on the top of your stand.  The bigger/heavier the mics the more likely your stand will go down when a drunkard stumbles into it and the more likely some busybody will notice it and make you move.  Also consider what will happen when you want to extend a stand out from the balcony or hang your mics from their cable.  Smaller is definitely better.

A smaller/lighter rig, because the mics and mounts are smaller, will be a huge blessing when you have to run to get a good spot.  Or when you must carry your rig around all day at a festival or on a European tour (I practically slept with my rig on phish euro tour '97.)  How about when you're walking down a sketchy street back to your car at 3am?  Definitely a time to have as small a target as possible.

Sometimes you have no choice but to clamp onto someone elses stand and that's a lot easier when your mics are small.  When you have big mics on a standard stereo bar you're probably going to have to clamp lower than you would with a small active setup.  If the stand isn't going very high you might be at head level or near the floor when taping downstage.

Get small mics, they give you options and help you avoid bad situations.

[Fried Chicken Boy]

Not a bad argument, burris, but if having a small rig is of paramount importance, the OP should also check out the DPA 402x series of mics.  Very small and closer than Schoeps to the sonic signature of the AKG's, IMO, which the OP seems to prefer.

[Myco]

Good argument burris, but it also emphasizes how it would be great if the designers focused more on getting us at least one active option for AKG's and Gefell's instead making an ever increasing array of options for Schoeps mic's. The reason many go with the Schoeps is exactly because the market is flooded with active options, but the rest of us get pushed to the side for new Schoeps options. Don't we have enough Schoeps options already? It's extremely frustrating.

If you build it .... they will come!

[darktrain]

I think the hard truth is there just isn't enough demand for actives to make it worth while for those companys, It takes time and money to develop and would likely not get there money back,   AKG has tried it a couple times and discontinued both(blueline and 460's), you guys have to remember us tapers are just a minute faction in the microphone world, your AKG and Gefell dreams will most likely come from custom jobs. Listen i know Gefell's are good, but reality is very few people have em, so to develop something for such a minor % of users makes very little business sense, unless the same development of say the AKG stuff in the "hopper" could be used for them.

[Myco]

I think the hard truth is there just isn't enough demand for actives to make it worth while for those companys, It takes time and money to develop and would likely not get there money back,   AKG has tried it a couple times and discontinued both(blueline and 460's), you guys have to remember us tapers are just a minute faction in the microphone world, your AKG and Gefell dreams will most likely come from custom jobs. Listen i know Gefell's are good, but reality is very few people have em, so to develop something for such a minor % of users makes very little business sense, unless the same development of say the AKG stuff in the "hopper" could be used for them.

That's the thing, AKG's and Gefell's could be used interchangably in the same design, it's been done before and discontinued. The custom jobbers were what I was talking about also. Schoeps has their own setup, but the custom jobbers churn out more and more options for Schoeps, but totally disregard the AKG's & Gefell users who could be accomodated together with the same design. You can't say that people don't own AKG's also. AKG's & Gefell together could amount to a significant market if someone bothered to tap it. Most designers do not wait until there is actual orders for a product, they go out and build it and create demand for it. People can't buy what doesn't exist on the market.

[acidjack]

The PSP-2 is lightyears ahead of every modern day 2-channel preamp.

Not biased, are you? 

Regarding the OP's question, I've heard many great Schoeps pulls and many great AKG pulls.  Conversely, I've heard a lot of crappy pulls with both mics, too.  This is just my own experience, but there was a time where I would talk with tapers who bragged about running Schoeps and getting their "sick pulls", I would listen to them and they sounded like ass to my ears.  I realized after that there are/were a group of noob tapers who feel that just because they have the most expensive and regarded microphones, that automatically means they'll get the best recordings.  Tantamount to thinking that if you own a Ferrari, you'll automatically drive as well as Ben Collins or Mario Andretti.  The case was that they really didn't know what they were doing and that their bad results were due to the user and not the mics. 

All that said, my preferences run to AKG and DPA, but I wouldn't mind a set of MK41's or MK5's.

Much truth to that

[acidjack]

I think the hard truth is there just isn't enough demand for actives to make it worth while for those companys, It takes time and money to develop and would likely not get there money back,   AKG has tried it a couple times and discontinued both(blueline and 460's), you guys have to remember us tapers are just a minute faction in the microphone world, your AKG and Gefell dreams will most likely come from custom jobs. Listen i know Gefell's are good, but reality is very few people have em, so to develop something for such a minor % of users makes very little business sense, unless the same development of say the AKG stuff in the "hopper" could be used for them.

That's the thing, AKG's and Gefell's could be used interchangably in the same design, it's been done before and discontinued. The custom jobbers were what I was talking about also. Schoeps has their own setup, but the custom jobbers churn out more and more options for Schoeps, but totally disregard the AKG's & Gefell users who could be accomodated together with the same design. You can't say that people don't own AKG's also. AKG's & Gefell together could amount to a significant market if someone bothered to tap it. Most designers do not wait until there is actual orders for a product, they go out and build it and create demand for it. People can't buy what doesn't exist on the market.

Taking a wild guess here, but I assume AKGs are more popular in total sales and use than Schoeps, no?  I'm assuming that just based on them being cheaper.  But, perhaps the applications for which 480s are most used are different than the common ones for Schoeps and DPAs, whose active designs are, I believe, primarily for use in hanging choir-type mounts or film sound effects where you need a little mic that's out of the way. 

That said, I can't imagine why an active option wouldn't be desirable for AKG since they must want a piece of that business.  But as Darktrain noted, they've tried and failed...

[H₂O]

Just get a pair of AKG Made vintage Telefunken ELAM 251's and call it a day!

[SmokinJoe]

I ran AKG480's (mostly 483's) for a little over 2 years, and I made hundreds of tapes with them.  This year I got Schoeps, and I've made probably 50 tapes with them.  I still own a pair of AKG460's, only with CK8's at the moment.

The AKG 460's and 480's have that "AKG sizzle".  Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion.  I will give the 483's a lot of credit in that when you are in a bad boomy place, they will cut through the mud and come back with a "decent" tape when most of my other mics wouldn't.  But that sizzle is fatiguing to me.  I don't know if I've ever sat down with a pair of headphones and listened to a whole show I made with my 480's... after a few songs I get itchy to do something else.  I'm not sure the sizzle "fixes" the boominess, so much as it covers it up by force.  If you put too much salt on your mashed potatoes, you can throw a bunch of pepper on there, and soon you can't taste the salt any more, all you taste is pepper.  Whether the overwhelming pepper is better than the overwhelming salt... that's a matter of personal opinion.

I've never gotten a muddy tape with my Schoeps, at least not thus far.  The Schoeps are "accurate"... and if the sound sucks in the room, you will hear that on your tape.  The AKG's are perhaps more forgiving of that.

For me it all comes down to this next statement, which is probably not going to make sense to a lot of people... to me the AKG's scream like a little kid "Look at me! Listen how awesome I sound!!", and they do sound awesome, but after a while I get tired of that screaming kid.   The Schoeps are like a calm voice saying "don't listen to the mics... listen to the music..." and I actually can relax and listen to he music.  No hype, no fatigue, enjoy the music.

What have continued to blow me away in the time that I've owned them are the Gefell hypers.  No overwhelming sizzle, great smoothness.  To me they sound "as good" as any other hypers I've used.  I like that fact that I have whole mics with caps and bodies for the same price as Schoeps caps, that allows me to run on 2 festival stages.

I definitely don't think anyone can make a blanket statement like "Gefells are better than AKG's, and Schoeps are better than Gefells".  Some nights this mic will sound better than that mic, another night it's the other way around.  And what you like this year, will probably change to something else you like better next year.