Having observed the near-constant fluffing of Chris' gear on here
, I felt left out not owning any, so I decided to make a first foray with his new active cables designed to work with the Audix micro capsules for the 1280/1290 series mics. I thought I would give my first impressions here after my first outing last night.
The build quality of the cables is excellent - the caps fit firmly into the housing, and the cables terminate in a high-quality gold-plated connector. The caps are about the same size as an AT U853 cap (but they will not fit into those bodies) but the housing Chris uses is much shorter than an AT853 body, making these mics smaller than those. I opted to get mine without clips because I'm not into clipping mics onto my shirt, but you can get that option if you want. The entire setup feels very sturdy. As advertised, the mics can be powered by any standard 9v battery box. I was running into an SPSB-10 from Sound Professionals into a R-09HR. I bought my cardiod caps from Full Compass. The part # is AUDIX CPS-MICRO-C. If you want hypers, same model, but instead, "HC" at the end. For omnis, "O".
Conveniently, I had taped the exact same band in the exact same venue (Built to Spill, Webster Hall, NYC) the night before, so while I was unable to do a true "A/B" (more on that below), I was able to make somewhat of a comparison of the Audix and my other mics. I'm not going to bother doing this blind because, as I said, it's not an A/B in any sense of the word. For reference, Webster is a large-to-mid-sized hall, standard rectangular shape, with a large upper balcony. Capacity is supposedly 1500. IMHO the acoustics in there are generally very solid and I am pleased with the sound of most shows there.
Night 1 I ran AKG ck91 (active setup custom modified by Busman) into a custom BB I bought from another TS.com user into the R-09HR. That night I was able to talk my way into the VIP balcony area, so I had a clamp and articulated arm that essentially placed the mics almost inside the SBD cage, mounted DIN on a custom kwon bar (I wish I had pics of it as it looked pretty cool). In other words, pretty much optimum placement for this venue and totally ideal conditions.
So, setup is: AKG ck91 (Busman active mod)>custom BB>R-09HR (24/48)
Here are some full song samples, in high quality VBR MP3:
http://www.acidjack.com/music/bts2009-10-12nyc_acidjack-02.mp3http://www.acidjack.com/music/bts2009-10-12nyc_acidjack-08.mp3http://www.acidjack.com/music/bts2009-10-12nyc_acidjack-21.mp3Night 2 I was rushing to get to the venue on time. Also, I partly bought the Audix to be a smaller stealth setup than the AKGs, so I thought it was a good test to run them in a hat rig. So, for night 2, I mounted the Audix basically X-Y in a hat rig, and stood FOB center of the floor in the typical "equilateral triangle" type spot. The crowd was pretty chill and I had great position, so it's about as good a "stealth" spot as I could have gotten.
So, setup is: Audix Micro Cardiod Caps>Church Active Cables>SPSB-10>R-09HR (24/48)
Here are some full song samples of the Audix, same high-quality VBR MP3:
http://www.acidjack.com/music/bts2009-10-13webster_acidjack-05.mp3http://www.acidjack.com/music/bts2009-10-13webster_acidjack-09.mp3Again, noting that this is not an A/B in any sense of the word, I am pretty pleased with the performance of the Audix. In my opinion, I don't think the low-end is quite as detailed and rich as the AKGs, and the AKGs are a little warmer, I think. But, the instrument separation from the Audix is still quite good, and I think they offer a performance improvement over some other mics in that price range. They are also smaller and take less hassle to operate than the AKG setup (or certainly, more complex Schoeps and other setups that require phantom) since there is less custom gear to acquire (though I also did get a CA-9100 from Chris that can power the AKGs in the same order). I should also note that this was my first outing attempting something like "X-Y" in a hat rig rather than just pointing the mics forward in a basic A-B. Obviously, the placement of the mics themselves affects the sound.
I'm sure demand for these cables will increase as more and more folks hear about them. They seem like they could be a great option, and they could certainly be run on a stand easily enough with an accessory like the SP-GNA-2 from Sound Professionals (which they fit into perfectly) and a simple extension cable. I hope to try them on a stand right next to the AKGs in the future so I can do a true A/B. If you are an Audix user already and you ever run low-profile or stealth with your mics, these cables at $65 are an essential item.
Happy to hear others' opinions on the recordings. I know many have been asking for a report on these, and I haven't seen any, so I hope this is helpful to others who may be considering this option. Obviously it is only one set of recordings, so not definitive on the subject by any means.
If you do plan to order these, I encourage you to order them well in advance of when you think you "need" them. Chris is building all this stuff by hand and it will take time, possibly longer than his estimate. For more info on the cables and photos of the setup, check out the Retail Space here on TS.com. I do not have any pics of the mics myself.
Thanks to Chris for offering the product, and additionally for making the mods to my gear to accommodate my needs.
For those interested in downloading the whole shows, both are available for free download at
www.nyctaper.com. The MP3s are available straight off the site, and you can email the link on the site to get the web address for the FLACs (I do not have it).
Topic: Audix Church Active Setup - First review (Read 2159 times)