Another round of T's! Thanks for all the advice and the samples. If I were to get the AT822, what sort of placement advice can you offer? i.e. how "close" is "close"? I'm thinking that if I were to draw a line from the mic to the outside of each of the stacks that they should form a 90 degree angle at the mic. Does this sound like where I'd want to be? I assume placement of the Nady would be the same?
I just want to be sure that it's practical for me to get into the required position for a good recording with these mics before I pull the trigger.
IMHO the mic placement you describe is a good rule of thumb, but I haven't found the Nady to be too terribly fussy with regards to placement. I think the AT822, AT825 and the Nady are marketed as external mics for videographers; so they should be pretty flexible for that purpose. The times I've used the Nady (ARU & DTB 5/9; Marty Stuart 7/27; Col Bruce Hampton & Quark Alliance 7/28) were all outdoors, ~30-40' from the stage for all except CBH & QA*, and got good results.
If you're interested in a sample CD from my ARU & DTB 5/9 for comparison purposes (there must be more than one version of these sets available for dl somewhere recorded with superior quality mics--there were a few in the section that evening), PM me your mailing address and I'll burn ya one.
*Had to run about 100 YARDS from the stage for Col Bruce (long story); needed some help from Audacity afterwards, but got a surprisingly listenable pull.