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There's been an explosion in mid-priced microphones.
Fuelled primarily by the project-studio market, manufacturers have
introduced a variety of microphones in the $600-1,000 bracket. In
retrospect, it's an obvious idea: many owners of small studios need a
microphone that will outperform the $200-300 entry-level professional
mikes, but aren't willing to pop for the $2,000+ high-end units. At
this price level, it's possible to offer large-diaphragm condenser
microphones, and the field now includes mikes from Electro-Voice,
Equitek, Audio-Technica and Groove Tube, along with this latest entry
from the folks at Manley Laboratories, the Langevin CR-3A.
It's a company with a noble pedigree. David Manley began
making high-end tubed audiophile equipment in England under the name
of Vacuum Tube Logic. Their power amplifiers, in particular, garnered
excellent reviews, and they relocated their operations to the U.S.A.
in the mid-1980s. Since then, David and EveAnna Manley have
introduced the Manley line of high-end microphones, mike preamps and
other professional recording gear that's won equal acclaim in the
world of professional audio, while son Luke Manley continues to run
VTL.
Langevin is an American maker of high-performance
professional electronics whose lineage dates back to World War II.
Manley acquired the name a few years ago as a badge for more
moderately-priced solid-state professional equipment; the CR-3A is
their first venture along these lines.
The microphone looks familiar, as well it should: the
metalwork is exactly patterned on the Neumann U-87 and its
predecessor, the tubed U-67. Body design and screen shape strongly
influence a mike's frequency response, and Manley has chosen a proven
shape for the CR-3A. (This screen shape, incidentally, didn't
originate with Neumann; it traces its ancestry to early RCA ribbon
microphones, and was also used in the Sony C-37.)
The capsule is brass, and made in China -- the same
capsule used in several other comparably priced condenser mikes.
However, Manley has tightened up the quality control, rejecting a
large proportion of arriving capsules, and after some unfortunate
experiences, they've begun making all the electronics at their
California factory.
The fit and finish are very good; the metalwork is well
done, the threads don't bind, and the switches controlling the 10dB
pad and 100Hz low-cut filter feel solid and secure. The stand mount
and shock mount (of which more later) are mostly metal, and look
rugged enough to stand years of use. Looking inside, the electronics
are impressive; although the circuit seems to be a standard FET
impedance-converter (tried and proved worthy in a generation of
condenser mikes), the "housekeeping" circuits for controlling bias
level and phantom power look more sophisticated than usual. The
component quality is exceptional; the resistors look like
audiophile-quality metal film units, and I spotted high-quality film
capacitors and low-impedance electrolytics rather than the micas and
tantalum caps found in most microphones (including too many $2K
units). The output is coupled by a shielded transformer with plenty
of iron for good bass response, sourced from the same Asian supplier
as the capsule and metalwork.
As usual, I compared the CR-3A to the Shure SM-81 for my
functional tests. Although the SM-81 is a different type of
microphone, and occupies a different price bracket, it offers the
advantage of familiarity; it's a high-quality, versatile microphone
that shows up in many project studios. If I say that a mike I'm
testing sounds brighter than an SM-81, most of you will have some
aural idea what I mean. It's also one of the few moderately-priced
microphones that can hold its own in comparisons with the big boys.
For testing, I connected the CR-3A and the SM-81 to a
pair of small, transformer-coupled solid-state mike preamps I built
several years ago. These have the advantage of precisely-calibrated
gain controls, allowing me to compare sensitivities accurately. The
CR-3A proved to be very sensitive indeed, measuring a full 10dB
hotter than the SM-81. This mike should be compatible with almost any
board or mike preamp, and the output is high enough to be handily
clear of the preamp's input noise, even with a soft vocalist. The
mike's self-noise is reasonably low; from Manley's specs I calculated
it as 27dBA. Their specs also indicate reasonably high overload
levels; without the 10dB pad, the mike will take 122dBA, while the
pad boosts this to 132dBa. This ought to be ample for drums and loud
amplifiers; because it's such a hot mike, you may need to pad your
mike preamps too. For subsequent testing, I set the preamps' gains to
match the two microphones' sensitivities.
Using the standard mount, the CR-3A was significantly
less sensitive to shocks than the SM-81, both at high and low
frequencies. (I checked both mikes with their bass rolloffs switched
off.) However, I still suggest using the shock-mount at all times;
the CR-3A has a "pinging" resonance in its outer shell, and
resonances of this sort color a microphone's response even when they
don't ring overtly. Clamping the mike into the shock mount reduces
this resonance by about 12dB.
I
tested the CR-3A's susceptibility to induced hum by placing it next
to my Wall Wart from Hell. It measured about 4.5dB worse than the
SM-81; the most sensitive area was around the amplifier section, but
I also picked up some hum in the transformer. This wasn't
particularly bad performance, but you might want to be cautious when
using this mike on combo amplifiers or other sources of hum fields.
I
informally tested the polar response of the microphone by moving in a
circle around it while wearing earphones and making noise. (Thanks to
a lingering sore throat, I wouldn't quite call it "singing".) As
Manley notes in their manual, the pattern is a wide cardioid, and I
found it significantly wider than the SM-81's in most of the front
hemisphere. Somewhat surprisingly, its maximum null was at 150
degrees rather than 180, which is characteristic of a hypercardioid
pattern.
Most directional microphones have "proximity effect":
the bass response rises as the sound source moves closer. The CR-3A
had much less proximity effect than usual; in this respect, it was
similar to its model, the U-87. However, when I placed it over the
neck of a guitar, it sounded bassier than the SM-81. After some
puzzlement, I realized that the wider cardioid pattern was picking up
bass output from the soundhole of the guitar more strongly.
There was surprisingly little P-popping for a condenser
microphone; the screen's fine wire mesh did a good job of filtering.
The pops that popped were less obtrusive than with most condenser
mikes; there seemed to be little overloading of the mike's internal
preamp, which usually makes P-pops on condensers sound horrible. For
reasons I'll discuss below, this was good news.
Since this microphone was so clearly patterned after the
Neumann U-87, readers will no doubt wonder whether it sounds like a
U-87. It's not an entirely fair question, since this mike costs about
1/3 as much, but it's unavoidable. The answer is no. In using the
CR-3A, I didn't hear the creamy, liquid sound of a U-87 at its best.
What I did hear, however, was a damned good microphone in its own
right. Read on.
I
gave the CR-3A a good wringing out with the sound source I know best,
my Martin 00-18. As I've mentioned, this is a tough source to record,
and how a mike responds to its wide range of sounds can tell a lot
about its overall performance. I aimed the CR-3A and SM-81 at the
instrument's fingerboard, over the 16th fret, a position I've found
to be the best for this guitar. I set the SM-81 for gentle rolloff,
but left the CR-3A flat.
The result was remarkable, and a testament to Manley's
design. The frequency balance (see Figure 1) sounded quite similar to
the SM-81's, and at first blush they seemed comparable, but as I
listened to my test bits over and over, I began hearing differences.
To quote my notes: "A little more civilized. More 3-D & body;
cleaner detail. Less electronic sounding. More physical impact. Much
more delicate."
The more I listened, the more contrasts I heard. The
details of the sound were more subtle, and there was far better
"pitch definition" in the bass -- I could better discern the pitch of
individual notes at the bottom, rather than hearing a generalized
boom. I was most impressed -- the only mike that's outdone this
performance on my guitar was the Sennheiser MKH-40, which is a lot
more expensive.
I
also checked the off-axis responses. With the guitar at the side of
both microphones (90 degrees), the SM-81 was all midrange, while the
CR-3A had the bass rolled off and the treble elevated. Turning the
CR-3A so the guitar was aimed at the bottom of the mike (still 90
degrees), the frequency response was similar. The two mikes had
similar amounts of side rejection; apparently the "wide cardioid"
character only applies to the front. Going round the back, the CR-3A
had 3-4dB more rejection at 180 degrees than the SM-81, but the
leakage was all treble.
This complex off-axis response isn't peculiar to the
Manley, or even to microphones using the same capsule. Rather, it's
endemic to all large-diaphragm condenser microphones; because the
capsule's size is comparable to the wavelengths of high-frequency
sound, the laws of physics state that any large-diaphragm mike must
be a compromise design, and the off-axis responses are always
erratic. This is why measurement microphones are always small
(typically 1/4" capsules), and why microphones designed for flat
off-axis response typically have diaphragms no larger than 3/4". Such
microphones are great for crossed-pair recordings, but they don't
have the close-in vocal magic of a good large-diaphragm condenser.
So I tried the CR-3A on my voice. For this test, I
compared it with the Electro-Voice RE-15, which so far has given the
most honest recordings of my pipes. The RE-15 is very flat, and the
sound is very plain, but outside listeners assure me it sounds just
like me (slightly raspy, post-sore-throat). I set both mikes for flat
response -- no bass rolloff.
The CR-3A's midrange response was almost identical to
the RE-15's -- flat and smooth, with no nasal colorations or squawky
resonances. The bass was slightly less, while the 10kHz resonance
definitely picked up more sibilance than the RE-15. I dislike
sibilance, but I found that although it was more prominent, it wasn't
disturbing or unpleasant. Part of the reason was that the sibilance
was extremely clean. There was no "hashy" or "spitty" sound, as there
is with many bright microphones; a "ssss" didn't become a "shhhh".
I
tried the CR-3A on several other vocalists in live performances; it
worked fine on all of the men, and its wide pattern proved invaluable
in miking a singer who tended to sway from side to side. On women,
the result was mixed; on one, it gave the most accurate rendition of
her voice I've heard, while its lack of proximity effect made another
sound too thin compared to a Beyer M-260.
Manley's instruction manual acknowledges that no
microphone will be best for every vocalist -- a refreshing and
realistic perspective. However, my limited experience with the CR-3A
leads me to suspect that its batting average will be excellent. And
although I had few chances to try it on instruments, I can report
that it was the best microphone yet for a problem guitar, a classical
instrument that had defied all comers (including an MKH-40!) until
the CR-3A came along.
(Thanks to the ukis who were good enough to serve as my
guinea pigs: Martin Carthy, David Kirchner, Margaret Nelson, Cheryl
Stryker and Dave Van Ronk.)
I
have one bone to pick with this microphone. To put it bluntly, the
supplied foam windscreen is awful. It's huge and ugly, making the
mike visually obtrusive in live gigs, and it's sufficiently flimsy
for pieces to pull loose as it's being placed over the capsule. Far
worse, however, is what it does to the sound; while using the
windscreen does slightly reduce the sibilance, it also robs the
microphone of its liveliness and presence; the sound lacks detail and
"zip" with the filter in place.
Luckily, this won't a problem for most users. When the
CR-3A is used in a studio, a panty-hose-and-embroidery hoop pop
filter (described elsewhere in this issue) can provide the necessary
filtering. (And the CR-3A is sufficiently pop-resistant that you
might not need it.) Only if you're planning to use the CR-3A as a
vocal mike in recording live performances will you need a foam pop
filter; if that's your situation,I suggest you buy one from Neumann.
In any event, I wouldn't let the windscreen deter you from buying
this excellent mike.
Because that's what this microphone is: excellent. It's
not a U-87 on the cheap, and you shouldn't expect it to be one.
Instead, it's a very good microphone in its own right, with an
individual sound I find quite appealing. My experience says it'll
sound great on many vocalists (although you should probably avoid
using it on singers with severe sibilance problems or thin tone), and
it's also (based on my guitar tryouts) a real sleeper for
instruments. It's not universal -- no microphone is -- but it's a
good design, well-executed, and (so far) the best I've heard in its
price range. Solidly recommended.