Alright, day after xmas... did the big turkey feed and dropped into a food coma about 9PM and slept 8 hours straight. My wife is at work, the kids are up with the new X-mas toys and I am on my second cup of of fresh roasted (got a roaster last year... coffee has many similarities to taping you know)
After all the helpful dialog in the last two days, I bought a JB3 on Ebay yesterday (new, in the box $205 shipping included). I am leaning toward the digimod UA-5 (maybe with the W/mod if I could figure out what it really is) everybody here thinks so highly of but when I searched ebay for it the ones I found were all stock. I also found something called a UA-25... so in no particular order, here are some more newby questions for you guys willing to help me spend my money:
1. What is a UA-25? Good, bad, indifferent... sub for UA-5? Upgrade? Downgrade? Totally different creature?
2. Mics. I use to run AKG451eb/CK1 most of the time. I also used 421's and 441's at times for dead shows (late 70s early 80s) the bass response was better in the Sennheisers than the AKGs, but overall I like the 451s better.
So.... for accoustic shows, direct instrument, and for festivals... if you have to go for one pair of mics (>UA5>JB3) and you do not want to break the bank.... I have read the write-ups of the C-4s how do they compare to the SM-81, AT4051, AKG451s that I am familiar with? Any other suggestions. I am willing to go higher $s than the C-4s... how about up to $600 for a pair of mics...
Keeping in mind the variety of uses, what would you buy?
3. Outboard metering, It sounds like one of the drawbacks to the UA-5>JB3 combo is the lack of metering. What do you suggest and how does it integrate? Where does it go in the chain?
Thanks again,
Steve