I'm looking to upgrade, well that's probably the wrong wording, buy some new mics with different charateristics I guess. I'm currently running CA-11's & CA-14's Cardioids with either PCM-M10 & Roland R-05 and a CA BatteryBox. I really only stealth tape with mics clipped under my collar or the CA-11's in croakies. I mostly attend shows at smaller clubs or theatres with the occasional arena show.
I don't want to break the bank, so I'm looking at the Sound Professionals mics which I like the sound of, but not sure on which ones would be the best fit for my purposes. I'm tossing up between either the SP-CMC-8 or the SP-CMC-4U (with mod of course), but most of the older posts where there are pictures comparing are long gone. What size and weight are the SP-CMC-4U compared to the CA-14's as these have been fine so far for stealthing, but much bigger and heavy would be an issue. Or should I just spend the extra $200 and go ahead and get the SP-CMC-8? And are these mics fine to plug straight into the recorder with PP? I know it's not ideal, but at bigger venues in Australia they wand and would probably ask questions if they found a Battery Box or Pre-amp. I've gone straight into the recorder with the CA-11's at a very loud Meshuggah show with no problems. And I've also run the CA-14's with no BB without any issues at all.
Cheers