You asked me in a PM to post why I'd had thoughts (in another post) related to giving up my high dollar rig in favor of using Church Audio.
For me, open taping offers three major benefits over stealth, in order of diminishing importance to me; 1) it allows you to fly the mics above crowd chatter, b) it frees you up to enjoy the show a bit more, c) it gives you more options related to gear.
You should ask yourself which of these three are important to you. If c) is not important to you, then I'd ask myself why I feel the need to switch gear at all. IOW, your mics perform really well and you like the sound, then why do you need anything different? In my mind, there's nothing in the above equation that says that open taping means you need SD mics, or LD mics. For my own tastes in mics and the sound sampling that I've done on the archive, you aren't gonna get a sound improvement by going open and buying $250 SD mics. However, as others have mentioned, there are SD mics out there that provide a variety of capsule options (factor c) above). However, I also note that the CA-14 is also available with optional configurations, so again I'm not sure what is gained. To me, it's all a matter of whether or not you feel your sound is being improved by a switch in mics.
The bottom line of the above paragraph is that I would absolutely not worry about buying SD or LD mics for open taping just because open tapers seem to run SD or LD mics. There's nothing wrong or socially unacceptable with flying tiny mics! Same thing goes with buying preamps and recorders.
In terms of the recording itself, it's all about the sound. I find that for the money, the Church Audio gear delivers a sound that I like. For me, I've asked myself why I have between 4 and 5 thousand invested when I can get close to the same sound with Chris's products at a fraction of the cost. The LMA is my best friend for evalating these decisions, and these decisions are personal based on the sound that you like anyway.
For my ears, I haven't found a mic in the sub-$500 price point that sounds as good as the Church gear.
In fact, as I've invested more and more in my rig, there's been various degrees of excitement, but also a level of disappointment. For the money, I expected better sound. What I learned is that incrementally better sound costs TONS more money.
You should ask yourself what your expectations/goals are. If the sound is your primary factor for satisfying yourself in your hobby and playing around with gear isn't that big a deal (expecially considering that your sound might suffer because of it), then all you need to enjoy the major benefits of going open is a mic stand.
Topic: Good "open" mic's (Read 6267 times)