Topic: Switchable LDC, What's the word, economical?

[F.O.Bean]

Well said Kirk

[mosquito]

Busman you say?  And the ADC TL's are no longer being made?  Hmm.

Well, IIRC I've heard only good things -- or at least very nearly so -- about the Busman mics here.  Hmm.  Wish I could put down the cash to A/B some Busman and ADK's.  First step is to get some more handy cash! ;-)

[OOK]

ADK is about to release the "THOR"  it is a multi pattern LD mic, somewhat like the TL only minus the hyper card pattern. However it adds some things the TL did not have.  It adds a switchable pad and a 3 levels of high pass filters and low pass filters.  It appears to be the same size as the TL's.  There has been some talk of matched pairs but nothing offical yet.  It looks like a street price pair can be had for 800$.  The only retailer listing them at the moment is Front End Audio, but no price...hence I don't think they are released yet..

[Gutbucket]

Ironic.  If you want to use them primarily for coincident setups like M/S, I was going to suggest you look for a LDC which does have a selectable hypercardioid pattern.  I find the hyper and figure-8 patterns particularly useful on my ADK-TLs.  Those are pretty much the only patterns I use with them if setting up for coincident mic'ing (X/Y or M/S).  The cardioid and omni patterns (and the wide-cardioid pattern available on some mics like AKG 414s, not the TLs) are more useful for non-coincident setups.  Sure, most consider a cardioid mid mic as 'standard' for M/S, and that works fine, but I often prefer a hyper mid.  That gives me something a bit closer to Blumlein, but with enough forward directivity to make it more practical in many situations.  For X/Y I don't care much for using cardioids in a main mic pair, exceptions for stereo close-mic'ing.