Ok, this thread has inspired me. I pulled the trigger on a pair of NT6's and a set of omni caps. The NT4 was one of the first mics I worked with as an intern at a small studio. Being that these were dear to my heart I have always been curious about them for taping. I too had the same perception that these mics suck from a distance. I heard some tapes that sounded funny. After listening to every NT5 source on archive I don't see a problem with these mics. There are not many sources with a terrific signal chain out there to listen too, but I think I get the color of their sound. I don't think there is problem with the highs, but the upper-mids sound a little metalic. I am not concerned about pairing these mics with my Oade warm mod. I think the wmod will warm the mid tone up and blend better with the highs... As a poster mentioned above there are "presence boosted" card caps, and these are actually the ones that come with the NT6 as described in the manual. Some websites say that the NT6 comes with the same capsule as the NT5, but others say it comes with a "similar" capsule. There are also differences in the frequency response graph. I have emails in to Rode to clarify some of this stuff...
Being that Rode just came out with the NT55 and have no plans of discontinuing the NT4,5,6, I have hopes that they will make some additional capsules, including the hyper that is listed in the product documentation.
Our community is quick to write a set of mics off on one persons opinion. I am going to give these a real good workout in the concert taping environment. The recording studio and orchestral recording folks have more than favorable reviews of these mics....
