Thanks to Wiggler I was able to listen to his and my copy of the DTB show from Sat. night at the Magic Bag. It's not "true" a/b, but I'd say pretty close. The mics were close than they ould have been if on the same stand and were M210's run XY DFC/FOB about 20-25' from stage. He ran the V3 I ran the Mini-me both at 16/44.1. He runs different cables (I run X-tremes) and ran w/o windscreens (I run w/ DPA screens). These were listen on Rocket RS750's with 4 deg. toe in spaced 9' and 2' from back wall. Powered by Marantz Sr8200 and Pioneer 45a was transport. Now w/ all that crap outta the way, on to my review...
I put his disc in the player first and thought it was a very nice tape. I had yet to track out my source so I just listened to this for a little while and was impressed. I did listen to my source from the DAT a few days earlier and thought this new source smoked it as it was very detailed and clear. I then went up and had to hear my source so I made 1 long track, but it was too late the dog went to bed and the listening would wait until the next day. On the way home from work I popped in both discs to compare and found that after a few minutes with the V3 disc I was totally focused on the highs. After this got to me I put in the mme disc and found the highs to not be so intense. I discounted all of this due to the fact I was listening in my truck.
When I got home I started with the mme disc and thought " Yeah I could handle these tapes from now on
" and felt the bass wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It went low and had a nice punch to it. The mids were very nice and I wasn't displeased with the guitar sound at all, very nice. The highs were detailed, but my ears did not focus on them. I then put the V3 disc in. The highs were not as intense as they were in the truck, but did come off "brighter" than the mme tape. I didn't think the mids were as nice as th mme, but they still weren't bad. Now the lows were a little and I mean a little tighter, but weren't as different as many claim them to be. Now many have said they love the highs in the V3 and I think they are great too, but I can't help but think this detail may be due to the brighter voice of the V3. Maybe the pre needs some break in.
In conclusion I would really like to own both. I like the feature set a little more on the mini-me, but the meters hands down go to the V3 as does size and layout. With all this being said, I think if I had metal dome tweeters in my system I don't think the V3 would be a good match. I would stick with the fabric tweets... This is all my personal opinion so take it as that please.
SC