Originally Posted by Ty Ford ➡️

I'll be 76 later this year, otherwise known as "old as ****." My mom bought me my first tape recorder when I was nine years old.

Do you have any e-609? Half a million years ago, when a friend brought one to my studio, we both thought it sounded VERY much like an "original recipe" 421. I'm referring to the black body ones here in the US. As you mention, there were earlier models, but I don't know if they evolved the recipe.

The MD421 have been used on toms for a long time. Don't know if they are today or not. I used them for voiceovers and found them quite good for that until DAWs with CRT monitors came out in the late 1990s. The early CRTs spewed a circle of RF noise and if the mic was sitting in front of the CRT, (because dynamic mics use a coil of wire moving in a magnetic field) the coil would pickup the RF noise projected by the monitor.

I switched to a Gefell M71. It's a condenser mic, so no coil for a pickup. The early M71 had some RF problems, presumably because East Germany didn't have the fierce RF environment we have here. A few well-placed components inside the mic, and the RF was thwarted.

Yes, I am very comforted! The MD441 is a lovely dynamic. I used it on-the-air back in the mid 1970s at an AM radio station. I got pretty familiar with it, talking into it every day. The MD431 is also quite nice and has a very tight pattern.