Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ty Ford
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even three "old" U 87 i with different life backgrounds will sound different, so that your 421 "measured" so far apart is quite understandable. Hopefully, the new ones were less problematic.
Why is large good? If large means a larger diaphragm, the larger the diaphragm, the higher the voltage generated from those "weird" inner parts you don't care about. Not so much a problem in "the old days" when analog tape noise was a major part of the noise barrier, but after digital, the lower noise floor allowed us to hear and perturbate about other noisy things in the basement like selfnoise and preamp noise.
i started working professionally in 1978, so back in the days of tape but long after the 421 got introduced. i have no idea what happend to my old 421's before i got them (admittely very cheap) but in their poor state, they were an obstacle, not an asset so i used other mics and eventually gave the 421's away.
the new ones (we're now in mid-80's) measured* more close together and performed better (the drum kits got bigger so i bought five 421's iirc) - they got regular use, mostly on toms for which they were okay but physically annoying!
i admit that things (in terms of my 'love' for the 421's) didn't change much since, neither with the version II (90's i guess?) nor the 521 (or however the cheap reincarnation without 'rumpelfilter' was called?)...
...and your superior technical knowledge won't bring me closer to the 421's either (or the u87 for that matter) - but perhaps you'll be comforted to know that i'm absolutely okay to use the e-904's (we're still talking about toms?) and if we were even talking about the 441(which i used yesterday with bob mintzer), my mood would brighten considerably!
* and yes, i regularly 'measure' and compare my mics, for decades in the same room, in the same position in front of the same speaker and in comparison to the same two b&k's - measurement gear has changed a bit though...