Does any one have any experience with the sp cmc 19, AT898 cardioids? Are they an upgrade from the 853s? Haven't seen many recordings with them.
FWIW, when I bought my CMC-8's I asked Chris C. of Sound Professionals whether to buy these instead. He recommended that for my application (generally, rock music, amplified) the CMC-8 were the better choice. I since replaced my caps with the adapter and U853s and find those to be even better than the CMC-8. I'm sure if you put the question to him, Chris can help with a compare. If I remember correctly, the reason he thought they weren't a good option for me was they lack bass, but I could be misquoting.
(But no, to answer your question, I haven't tried them).