I've always loved Cad microphones. Ever since I had my Equitek E100 Mic.
One thing you can be sure of is that Cad microphones always look great.
They are very impressive looking to customers who come in to use your studio.
I'm a big fan of the vocal recordings of the '50s and i always wanted to get that tube sound.
You know the kind of sound that you hear on the old Ray Charles records and Nat King Cole records.
I went on ebay and got a brand new CAD m9 below retail price.
It comes with a nice looking case and shock mount and is very professional, something you can be very proud of.
Let me just say this, CAD is one of the best microphone companies around. Their customer service is unbeatable they are knowledgeable and respond quickly to any problems you might have. After I received my CAD microphone, I noticed I was receiving radio frequencies through the microphone. I called up CAD and a support person by the name of Craig was very helpful and arranged for me to send in the Mic. Once Craig received the Mic he called me to let me know he had started working on it. I got the mic back a few days later and it was in great shape and they even included a brand new extra tube. I use this microphone on all of my top R&B artists. Especially the female artists. This microphone is also very popular with the Neo Soul artists who come in to use the studio. I do not record mic;d drum's guitar or bass, so I cannot tell you how it sounds or performs on those instruments. I can't tell you that on vocals it is fantastic, and mic placement and technique only add to its greatness. It has a nice hot single which i really like alot, you do not have to drive your microphone preamp really hard to get a nice strong Signal. like all mics today it does have that bump in the high mid area.
The high mid jump is nowhere near as drastic as other microphones I have sampled, definitely not a bad as the road mics which I took back to the store after 1 day. I went on ebay and brought a telefunken 12AT7 new old stock (nos) tube.
I'm sure this will smooth out some of those high mid frequencies. I'm speaking from my own personal taste, I'm sure a lot of people like those high mid frequencies just as they are.
I decided to do a test using my CAD M9 microphone verses the microphones listed on the listening sessions dot com. I created a digital performer session at 24bit 48 khz while having the listening sessions up on my web browser. I recorded myelf singing using my ramsa 8118 preamps and compared it to the male voice sessions on the listening sessions dot com. I can tell you right now that my Cad M9 sounded just as good if not better than any microphone in all of those sessions even the ones using the great river and API microphone preamps. The only difference I could see is that the CAD had a little more low-end darkness than the top model microphones listed. This may be due to my 8118 preempt on my Ramsa mixing board. Then again a tube mic is supposed to have that heavy type of sound so maybe that's the way it's supposed to sound. The higher end microphones and microphone preamps had a more cleaner sound than the CAD M9. if the Clean Sound is what your looking for then why buy a tube microphone, you want a tube microphone to sound tubey. I think thats why alot of companies boost that high mid so much, but for those of us who grew up on tube equipment recording on to analog tape, that super clean sound ain't all that.
The difference in sound between my set up and the listening sessions is not worth the thousands of dollars in price differences if you ask me. By using the low bypass which and experimenting with eq, you you can get that same clean sound with your cad mic. if you want to get a great bang for the.buck this is definitely the way to go. My Cad M9 was made in America but now I hear they're making them in China, we could only hope they keep up the quality. Cad now has a new tube mic called the Triton 8000. I was thinking of upgrading to this microphone until Craig at CAD confirmed that this mic is made in China.
If at all possible I do not buy Chinese-made equipment. At this time I'm looking to buy a CAD VX2 tube Mic.
That's American made cold steel baby, they call it the ELEPHANT PENIS. Until then the cad M9 is a+.
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