As I understand it, the key with all of these is whether the manufacturer modifies that Panasonic WM-61A cap that, to my knowledge, is used in most of these type of "homemade" omni mics (Coresound, Sonic Studios, Squid, etc.). Core and SS make significant modifications to the caps, as well as matching them, to improve performance. There is a clear and obvious difference in sound quality between CSBs (and to an even greater degree, Sonics) and unmodified or poorly manufactured Panasonics.
The squids I find kind of confounding, because I've heard some good recordings made with WM-61s that folks modified at home, so it can't be all that hard to make them into decent mics. The recordings on Giant Squid's own site, which are used as examples of their "quality," are heavily distorted.
I've had fine luck and service (other than learning to use the phone rather than e-mail) with Coresound mics, and have owned both the CSCs (which I disliked the sound of immensely, but were made fine), CSBs and the "HEB" DPA 4061. My CSBs, when I sold them 15 years later, worked as well as the day I bought them.
Coresound makes good mics, but bad customer service in many cases and much more bang for the buck with Church Audio. The Coresound High End Binauals are good of course, but they are just modified DPA 4060's or 4061's. I'd rather get them without going through Coresound.
The CS low cost binaurels may be like the squids, they blow as well, the regular CS aren't bad and the DPA's they do are a rip off, lots of people have had them "go down", you would be much better off just buying straight from dpa or buying on ebay
Topic: giant squid mics (Read 8371 times)