Okay, so I just came back from my first time using the 414's. Recorded three local bands at the coffee house on campus. Unfortunately, we didn't have the PA we normally use, and what we got instead was crappy. The sound was either not so good or disastrous... And there I was with the 414s... in the back of a boomy room.
Without typing a novel, the results sound kind of promising considering the substandard circumstances. I ran the mics DINa (hypercards), DIN (cards), and XY (cards). It's hard to tell what I prefer, given that it's anything but a perfect comparison. Plus, I might have screwed up and run xy with one mic set to card and the other to hyper... oops.
Guess I'll have to do a lot more to find out what I like best. Don't know what I'll do at the Fillmore tomorrow, but I lean towards DINa or aiming hypers at the stacks, just to play it safe.
Fortunately, there were no issues with the laptop, USB, drivers, or the UA5. Even power consumption was not a problem. The 414s draw a lot, but after a little more than two hours, I still had all the lights on the UA-5 battery, which makes me feel a lot better. Now I'm wondering if I should recharge it a bit for tomorrow. (Will need about 2.5 hours.) Could that be a problem? Memory effect and all? What do you guys think? (This is the Energizer model that Oade sells.)
