NoHype Audio's new ribbon mic is out now
by jpgerard   10th September 2018

Looks like your link got a little messed up there, JP. You've got an extra "http://" on the end of it.

I'm looking forward to hearing some examples!

Thanks for the heads-up, I always mess up my GS links!

As with our previous models, sample vids and audio files will trickle in soon. I'm a big fan of user submitted samples, as they're typically unbiased and more "real life" examples compared to a super produced manufacturer's demo. Reports and comments should come in soon, as a good number of LRM-V's already shipped out last month.

I’m curious what differentiates this from similar style mics offered by Golden Age, Cascade, Nady, etc. Are internal components upgraded and/or replaced? In the market so would appreciate any insight. Thanks

Well everything is different... I kept the grille as it was a request from customers, who seem to like the discontinued LRM-1 looks. That said the grille went from a single layer to multi layer design. The body is longer to accommodate the new motor, a brand new proprietary motor. Mounting inside is prop. also. The bracket is new and includes a shock absorbent isolation mount. So you could say that the main difference is that it's completely different Unlike the aforementioned mics, this is not a repackaged poor AEA knockoff. I hesitated before deciding to listen to my clientele and keep the LRM-1 grille as everything inside is fresh. Time will tell if I made the right choice but given how well it's been received so far I'd say it's on the right track.

Sounds wonderful!
I guess this info from your site also goes for the new one?

Lundahl or stock?
The Lundahl transformer option is typically chosen for more critical applications like classical recording. For Pop, Rock, Blues, Jazz... the stock transfo is usually preferred for its added midrange colour.


Ps, Love this

Darker, rounder response, closer to the vintage US and UK made ribbons.


as opposed to 'we now reach 160 kHz'!

The LRM-V is built around the stock tranny. The motor is based on that transfo. The Lundahl really gives the mic a huge low end and recessed presence and to me, it's a bit too much... so I don't offer this as a standard option. Happy to do it for those who insist but it's going to get real dark and woolly. I have more things in the works in terms of motors that will "talk" to the Lundahl quite a bit better.

Thanks! From the earlier description i'd have gone for the stock one already, now even more.

So very nice to hear somebody has the dedication to create a superaffordable ribbon that sounds... like a good ribon mic!

Of all the below-500 bucks ribbons i've tried through the years only the Beyer M320 remains fondly remembered... or something is charming but for very limited sources... so in the end nine out of ten times i use AEA44 or RCA77... but also i just 'know/feel' that with good tuning and components a lot more should be possible in the not so boutique department.

Also especially the 44 in a less-than-large-and-fab room has its own challenges as going closer than a foot will get you in mudland easy with a baritone voice... would be so cool to have an alternative, not in hopes to sound like mic x or y but just a good sound on its own.

Hoping to order one this or next month, cheers!

Ah, Fig-8 in small rooms... I prefer them over Omnis in small/untreated rooms though. Maybe look into portable bass traps? Start with a good room. If the room is boomy no matter what mic you use you'll end up with troubles. The 44 (at least one version) had a low cut filter, but you get a similar effect with a good first order HPF so prox. effect is usually not a real problem. Room resonances though aren't linear, like prox. effect, and require a lot more EQ efforts, assuming there's no nasty phase distortion going on (really small untreated rooms mess up LF phase and there's no real fix for it as the source itself, not the mic, is altered).

Thanks for the helpful hints! At the moment the room is what my friend calls 'a good mix of live and dead' with DIY style hemp and coconut mats and reed here and there and cork on the ceiling, but the portable bass traps sound like a good thing to try. Most important i feel is adjusting one's singing and playing to the room.

Had various luck with low cut filters, often i'd soon miss something and rather back off some more, but on an old Siemens pre there's one at 80 Hz that sounds with the AEA44 like it's not even on. RCA77DX has a voice setting that's a big low cut but i think hardly anybody uses it because it loses a lot of the famed texture that way.

In the end there seems to be no receipe that works always, except a better room is a better room i guess.

Cheers!

Right, but you'll need to compensate for proximity effect anyway, as soon as you're within a couple of meters from the source. If you have a 500 rack, TK Audio makes a nice mono filter, not expensive, one variable HPF and one variable LPF, 6 or 12dB/Oct., cut only, it's a great companion for your fav ribbon mic preamp, called TF-1.

The price is insane! Congrats. Any reviews of how it sounds? Great being made in Belgium......

Hey thanks for pointing out the TK Audio filter! I like that you can switch between 6 and 12 dB. Been contemplating a Bereich 03 for a while to combine with my 500 pre. Currently i use the Siemens with 40, 80 or 120 choices most often. Got a Filtek EQ with low cut but they are brutal, for 500 series a Purple Lil Peq i sometimes try a lo shelf but it's very colored in itself... sooner or later a dedicated unit sounds like a smart idea!

Then again... looking at the TK Audio site their preamp incl sweepable lo cut, 80plus (!) dB gain - hello ribbon and i don't like cloudlifter - and germanium option looks tempting as well!

Be glad to share my impressions as soon as it arrives! JP is faster than the wind but here we're at the mercy of custom proceedings...
My main thing is recording vox and acc guitar with one ribbon mic, some electric and some drums here and there - don't expect analytical insights but rather how it inspires me to record and how musical the sound strikes me.

I just find this such a brilliant concept. There's so much that can go wrong (and ruin the singer or players joy of recording with condenser mics who additionally by sheer component list look so much more expensive than ribbons to make.

Conversely with a ribbon it seems if you get 3-5 (forgive me my tech knowledge is nil) factors right you already have a good working mic. Then fine tuning within that may take up thousands of work and listening hours but the components price will probably not change a lot if at all.

But i'm very confident that this extra care JP puts in, will make a HUGE difference to the various affordable choices i had here where it seems the main difference is the different logo they put on the ever same model...

(the worst of the bunch, unforgivably named and made to look after the venerable 77, ruined a nice mic cable just trying to get it it plugged-unplugged, i can only hope it was a bad apple but so much to QC and the sound...)

For a singer... nothing like that smooth silky hugging lean-into ever-so-non-harsh ribbon feel, acc guitar - no contest for my kind of sound, el. guitar and drums point it in the general direction and all's good.

Would love to hear the more affordable of the Samar and Stagers, Extinct Audio et al.

But i have a feeling JP has created something as quantum leapy yet affordable to... well anybody who really wants a mic!

And that is just a plain wonderful thing to put in this world and i wanna support it.


Ps, o and i dig dig dig that this one is 'vintage voiced' as all my vintage ribbons have enough hifreqs for me and the roll off is just part of that feeling that gets me going i guess.

"Made in xxx" has been abused to the point where it's lost its meaning. Legally, most gear can't be "made in XXX" as it's made in China from Chinese parts, there may be repacking elsewhere, maybe even a slight alteration, but when all the parts are from China, claiming the product is made elsewhere is misleading. however it's become a trend. Again, legally, there's a certain max. % of imported parts to be accounted for before you can claim it's made nationally. Personally I prefer the proper term: "assembled in XXX" but as you can imagine, the marketing guys don't go for that

I use mostly imported parts, even if critical parts are proprietary, they're not made here in my workshop. Hence the price. So I'll never claim that LRM mics are Made in Belgium. It would be misleading and as far as I know, illegal. But they are assembled as well as designed and of course QC'ed here.

It's a good pre indeed. Z in is on the low side for ribbons but works. Got good reports from owners. Plenty of gain for sure!

I really appreciate your explanation! I don't have any problems with Chinese parts or any parts from different countries in this global economy. At the end of the day, the ears and sensibilities of the person behind the design are what counts. Look at any top product out there.

There is also a certain amount of over engineering that goes into an uber top shelf product. I'm fine with prosumer quality as I don't work in a 24/7 studio to create my music. I'm recording with Oktavas that aren't particularly elegant when you open them up, but the headline on those, is the capsule. It sounds like you've invested your resources in the ribbon assembly, and certain proprietary areas, where "the rubber meets the road". There's no reason to doubt that an intelligently designed and sourced product (especially a mic), won't work for years in a normal environment and be able to take occasional mishandling. Great concept, and looks like stellar execution!

Talked to my tape doctor last week and he told me he recently built a tube phono preamp out of curiosity, all parts ordered from China, not looking for the cheapest obviously but for good specs. All arrived no problem, he said of equal or better quality than stuff from here, at about 1/8th of the price... then he gave it to an audiophile friend of his to try out, who subsequently stored his three other very expensive amps... go figure.

To a layman like me it reads, if you know where and what to order and know what to do with it - sky's the limit and you can do a true service to the less financially fortunate, as well as those who care more for performance than fancy brand names.

But if you wanna do this with thousands and thousands QC gets tricky unless you travel back and forth constantly. Companies like Höfner guitars have their own factory in China as well as one in Germany. Many good examples, the bad ones we have all met i guess...

Ps, or my Groove Tubes Vipre... for years i thought of it as my 'all american classic channel' until reading "We had to have it made in China or it would have been way too expensive." That pre considered at the time by some famed producer as the best he had in his studio. Alas mine developed a noise problem and i hear many did, but i associate that more with the overkill overall concept than the providence of the compnents.

Z in i a on the low side for ribbons but works - do i read correctly that if you chose the Class A output that makes the impedance a bit low for ribbon mics? And that would mean a bit less bass and top? For me rather this than impedance too high when it gets uptight... or maybe i read all completely wrong - in any case it sounds like that SP501is something one would love to try in action.

Found very little on the net and only drum samples. One user though compared the germanium stage with the Chandler and liked it as much, so that's nice already... any useful adjectives, metaphors, poems or comparisons welcome!

Hi ardis, yes, it's up to the designer, then the folks who handle manufacturing and finally the QC, in that order, and they all matter pretty much equally. You can't have a weak link in there. Truth is if you spec the parts properly, keep an eye on the MFG process and QC everything, you can get good parts from pretty much anywhere. However finding the right partners for the processes you can't handle yourself is tricky and then things tend to change over time so relationships aren't cast in stone. In the end of the final product is up to the maker's expectation and matches the buyer's wishes, it's all good.

I've reached a comfortable pace, I can go a bit higher in volume but I won't go "mainstream" as things get out of control. It's not something I want to go through. Had a taste of it already in the past and I've learned from my mistakes. But being realistic - in this market, you'd have to be crazy to think you can reach the volumes of, say, the 90's... those days are gone!

No, it's the input transformer's input Z. Great for condensers and fine for most dynamic / coil. A bit low for ribbons if you like the full bandwidth response. Most folks don't though. And Z is high enough to yield proper load in terms of dynamics.

I know, in the studio I too used lower input Z settings occasionally to thin out a source!

Well once a Ge stage starts to distort, you get that Fuzz effect and you either love or hate it, in the TK its gradual and based on input level so controllable but it can be switched out of circuit to keep the amplifier clean. I personally like it on drums a lot and customers reported great fun on guitar cabs, adding more colour to an existing saturated tone while squashing the dynamics without using a compressor.

Thanks! Got a LaChapell pre whose sound i like on ribbons old and new and i think it's 1200 Ohm so that should be fine. And great to hear the germanium effect is controllable... maybe nice a touch on vox too while it's still on the gentle side.

Yes, a bit harder on vocals as singers tend to have a large dynamic range, but you could also use it at Line level on a recorded vocal track with careful gain staging after some compression.

No Hype really means NO Hype i've learned - JP must be the master of understatement... so please forgive me for expressing my impressions as enthusiasticallly as i feel them.

My fave short ribbon:

RCA 77 – deep sea diver with flashlight revealing glimpses of magic

My fave long ribbons:

AEA44 – a wonderful whale on its slow majestic trajectory... biggest creaminess

and now also

LRM V – a Zeppelin (same size as the whale) floating in mid-sky, looking nearly transparent yet well-defined with its inner luminosity and sunsparks bouncing off the surface... biggest euphonicness.

It may be best to mentally add a zero to the price when contemplating this mic.
After an afternoon and morning with the LRM V, it feels like a celestial sister to the AEA44, rivaling or equaling it in bandwidth and s/n ratio, and sonically complementing it like yang to yin.

If i wouldn't know the 44, just the huge sound alone would have blown me away - it's quite unlike any other ribbon i've heard.

Two other aspects that i've also not heard in a ribbon are this huge euphonic openness that is VERY alive to every detail, feels complex and refined, bringing out the good gloriously... and the bad in stark realism,

plus a kind of spark or sizzle that i've been racking my brain if i ever heard such in a ribbon and the only one maybe was an ultrarare one built by Jacob Boli during the war years... but one of them was a ribbon-tube combo if i'm not totally wrong... on that note the only other comparison i can come up with is a tube mic sound, not as coarse as old Neumann bottle, not as pointy as K56.... mmh.. U67? Yeah a sizzle but smoooth...

Kind of like M49 openness but if you move from 30cms on inward with U67 creaminess adding in along with a whole lotta VOG... all with ribbonesque natural ease... only 2999 bucks you say?

O and a third aspect i never noticed so distinctly is how you can EQ while moving off centre. Of course there's sound change with other ribbons too but the feeling of less-direct made me hardly do it, while with the LRM V it feels distinctively less-size, less bottom, less top as i move but still feels direct.

So far this has been my favorite eq experiment with reducing the huge mids and bass, which many of us i fear will have to tame in our less than large and wonderful rooms. With Siemens pre the bandwidth is close to scary if there are outside noises, plane subsonics etc, not to mention bad stuff building up inside untreated rooms.

Plus this supersensitivity... wanted just to doodle a bit on the 12-string and ended up tuning...tuning.

The perfect showcase for this mic as i hear it would be renting Grand Ole Opry, inviting Alison Krauss and band.. Al Schmitt doing the mix by placing everybody at the perfect distance and angle around a lone LRM V, and ask her/them to sing 'Happiness'... then Paul Robeson would kind of timezoom in and join (from like 4 meters from the mic) for 'Jesus Saviour'... all into a 80 dB preamp and straight to 2 track - and after resuming to breathe we'd all have to get religion... or at least a bunch of THAT mic ha ha!

If that was too flowery... it's simply a glorious HI END mic with superb specs and performance that in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing and especially in front of good musicians will be a most welcome color in their palette of iconic Ela Ms and...

btw can't prove it but have a feeling this will do superb on complex sources, string ensembles, choirs...

Maybe it's that open-laying ribbon and fine inner headbasket mesh combo that create that alive euphonic sound with those sparks.

JP alone knows - what a genius stroke! I probably should mention at this point i've never spoken to the man and have emailed him for the first time after coming across this thread.

Ribbon mics i own: 44, 77 as mentioned, RCA Varacoustic, Altec 639, Philips rare old, modded Apex. Owned: 2 Oktava ML19, Beyer M160/320, AEA 84, N22, Reslo, probably one or two i forgot. Tried: Altec Birdcage, Jacob Boli (very special), then some of the lo-budget ones (all more 'expensive' than LRM V).

Keyword re the loveless careless budget ribbons: dull n dead
Keyword LRM V: alive and happening... but again, comparing within similar price category won't work!

Finally for now, thank you JP not only for this magic tool but also for the 1A customer service, swift and pro from A to Z. Forms so clear it passed customs in absolute record time. Triple packed - soft but firm pouch, in foam in box, surrounded by marshmallowy bits in the actual parcel. Comes with a sheet of clear and detailed instructions including a 2 year warranty (!) except for shipping damage.

Expecting a modified Apex seeing that fat round mama was already a pleasant surprise. The screws, mounting etc all much more sturdy and workable than the ususal budget suspects. Looking in sideways i see that serious-looking motor and the corrugated ribbon...

again, incredible job JP! Oh happy poor singer-songwriter! ... (and pleasantly baffled hi end studio recordist).

Better/more pics would be great...and i did use a popfilter

Wow poetic! Hey JP if you want to brag on yourself a little and talk about what and why you sourced the components for, I don't think anyone would mind. Obviously not looking for too much of a peek behind the curtain, but it does seem this punches above it's weight and that your other runs are sold out on your site speaks volumes!

If that was poetic (or sounding overly enthusiastic) i'm afraid it's gonna get worse! Last two hours taught me i was only scratching the surface... last 45 minutes or so doing nothing but repeating that wonderful line the divine Yvonne Ellimann does between verses on Clapton's version of Promises, a aah aea a ah.. shebopdee wooh.. along with the now tuned 12 string, could have gone on forever and now feel like drinking three bottles of Barolo in one gulp, jumping in the river and screaming to high heaven and louder than Wilson Pickett: i'm in LOOOOOOOVE!!!

Roger over and out for now.

Wow... thanks! Looks like you won't be returning it

Well, no, but this s a good opportunity to write publicly what I've been typing in various email replies: been there done that... I won't give any information on the process, parts, supply chain or design, sorry. Too much IP theft and lost too much to it... just know that products are designed with performance in mind based on customers requirements and feedback. I'm in the lower end of the price range, or what USED to be the lower end, looking at the market now I'm almost in the mid range... very weird. I work on what I consider reasonable margins and don't hope for volumes to compensate for tiny profit per unit. I'm working pretty much direct and have zero advertising budget. everything goes into the product from design through assembly up to final QC. I don't discontinue a product for no reason, the LRM-1 had to go because all the issues linked to the overall design, somewhat primitive and bound to a price. The LRM-2 fixed almost al of the issues found in the LRM-1. The upcoming LRM-2b goes further in the development of a linear ribbon built to fit in the budget end of the market. The LRM-V exists only because I kept getting request for the shape of the LRM-1 coupled to a demand for a more Vintage type ribbon. Since I was working on a new motor, the LRM-V ended up with a much better S/N ration than the LRM-1 and the motor developments went into the LRM-2b as well (NB: they're not the same motors). The next model will not replace any existing model, the LRM-2b and LRM-V are now regular models and will be available for a number of years. Significant revisions may trigger a model name change but regular improvements (which are constantly implemented...) usually are just mentioned in the user guide and the website. The next mic will be the one of the to last ribbon designs I want to release in 2019/2020. Other projects are on the back-burner; I'm not working on quantity here and I need to keep the MFG process in check, so right now I have a good pace, I can go a bit higher, but that's it. Each mic is built and QC'ed one at a time and this will not change. It makes a significant difference, trust me - or better, don't, ask owners/users for their opinion