Hello. My name is Bryon, and I'm an omni addict. So much so, that I just bought a set of dedicated omnis:
http://avensonaudio.com/sto2/I've been lusting after these for months, and couldn't resist the allure of the frequency response graph, and the many reviews that said they have an incredibly natural sound. Plus, for $500/matched pair, it seemed to good to be true. I've been really happy running Nak CP3s, which have a similar response chart, but alas the CP3s aren't mine so I needed something that I could be sure to run at any time. I looked around here, and couldn't find anybody that's seriously running these, so I looked over at Gearslutz and a few other places, and didn't see anything to discourage me. There were a few comments saying they found the mics "noisy" and "power hungry" but for the few samples I could find, I couldn't hear it, maybe it's a problem with quiet shows, but most shows that I tape are on the louder side. Power to me isn't a big issue, I'm also a battery addict, and can comfortably get through festys without a recharge, and have AC access for most local shows.
Anyways, I got them yesterday and ran them at Donna the Buffalo at Cat's Cradle in Carrboro NC. It's not a great sounding room in general, so I ran a matrix:
http://www.archive.org/details/dtb2012-01-26.bryonsosI really wanted to post just the STOs since they sound AMAZING!, but the SBD brought a lot of vocal and guitar clarity that was lacking in the room, so I went with the matrix. The mics were FOB, slightly to the right, about 10-15' behind the sweet spot. Not ideal, but not bad especially considering you don't have to do much stand blocking from there. Here are some samples of just the STOs vs. the matrix. For the matrix, it's ~65% STOs, 35% SBD.
http://www.mediafire.com/?xlrhrdy4dp3wtLike I said, I think these things sound amazing. The STO only source sounds pretty much exactly how it sounded at the spot we were recording from. I'm planning on running these 2-3 times more in the next few weeks, and I'll update this thread if there's interest. I also plan on doing a 1:1 comp against the CP3s -> R-44, and I can post that too. In the pics, you can see they have a very compact design, and FYI the screens are the ones that Church sells for the CA-11s.
Topic: Avenson STO-2 (Read 8483 times)