Recently sold my Gefells to pay some bills (thanks again, scott petito!), but now I'm faced with a tough decision. After the holidays, I'll be able to swing one nice mic to cover acoustic and vocal duties in my home setup.

Based on my reading here at Gearslutz, I believe that I've narrowed it down to three choices:

1. Milab dc-196 - not many users here, but not a bad review anywhere I look. I'm intrigued by the info I've gathered on the rectangular capsule.
2. BeesNeez James - features the most flexibility w/ polar patterns, and I dig that the capsules are made in house
3. Lauten Audio Clarion - I could probably swing two of them as opposed to only 1 of the others.

I'll be running the mic in front of a ULN-2 into Logic. Any real world feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I'm gonna roll the dice and go with the Milab dc-196.

Which Gefells did you sell? Out of my 50+ microphones my UMT70S's are by far the closest to being all-rounders. They sound good on everything and great on a lot of things. Of course, if you're only going to have one mic, it had better be a good match with your voice. No way to know that unless you test it out.

I sold a pair of M300's and an MT71S. They were great mics.

another option would be to keep the umt71s and buy the innertube audio MICrobrew tube for the mic.

that way you have both a tube, and a transformer-less option for one mic.

Too late, I think he already sold all the Gefells. So I take it you weren't blown away by the MT71S (which is just a cardioid-only version of the UMT70S). Or are you just looking for a new sound to keep things fresh?

the only mic that really appeals to me out of that bunch is the james, but not as an "all-arounder"

i would love to have a james and am getting one soon to use with sibilant singers, this mic has such a nice dark sound that treats the hi's just perfect on even the most sibilant folks!!!!!!!!

but i wouldn't want it for my everything mic.

for an allarounder, maybe look into the lauten oceanus, another mic i have my eye on.

Check out the Pearlman TM-1.
C