Originally Posted by Sound of Pirates ➡️

IMHO, yes.

Out of the three, the Upton was the brightest and the Bock was the darkest(all relatively speaking). So sibilance had always been a problem with the Upton for me, and it's a bit thin comparing to the other two. And honestly Bock didn't really sound like a typical 251 to me (plus I never received a single reply to my emails in the past years from the company so I would avoid Bock as much as I can).

I used OG 251 a few times years ago in other studios so I am not quite sure if I could still remember that sound correctly. So my impression/decision was merely based on those three mics themselves in terms of which one sounded the best to my ears, not which one sounded the closest to the OG 251.

I used a few Tele USA 251's before (not mine) and they were nice but not wow. But this one which I just bought two months ago from VK is really stunning, the clarity is sick with full body and not harsh at all. I put in a NOS 6072 from Bowie and it sounds even better( a little more warmth and body in the low-mids , along with a smoother upper-midrange and more mellow top end). We shootout these three mics with a few engineer friends and we all picked the Tele USA without hesitation. The pres we used were RnD 5024, REDD47, and Coil 286. I don't know, maybe they have improved something in the recent years, who knows.

Honestly, I could care less if the Tele USA is a clone or reissue or whatever you wanna call it, as long as it sounds good to my ears, YMMV

Originally Posted by Paul_G ➡️

Bock is it's own thing for sure. Tube changes the shade too loads. I put a matched 5* pair in and it got darker Kind of like a dark C12 really. Lovely though. I don't like these fizzy clones, I'd rather use my Sony C800G.
The CK12 is still a difficult capsule to clone. I think the Austrian Audio followed by the Haun are my favourites. Austrian Audio should do a C12a that would be so easy.