Review on Neumann Condenser Microphone (Premium Edition/Nickel) by Marc Zitnik

I am a serious music lover. I have a great audio system and have been hand building tube audio and guitar amps since the 1980's. My main monitors are amazing (and expensive) floorstanding speakers from Bowers and Wilkins - they are amazing. I find my taste in audio consumption extremely high. However, from a creative perspective, it's just an occasional recording frenzy: spoken word, poetry, sometimes music and nature, etc. For pleasure, not money. So while I have great playback gear, my creative gear has been pretty good in the past. This is my frame of reference for you. I've been using the Behringer B2 Pro as my main condenser mic for a while. This is an economical and excellent product. However, I always wanted Neumann to be part of my "I want the best sound” personality. I could never justify 47/67/87/89 based on my needs, even if my geek in me wants to. That's why I've been fascinated by this fairly inexpensive TLM 102 for some time. Finally reviews and audio samples on the internet helped me and I bought one. First thought: '@#$% is not enough'. It really is like that. This is a medium sized capacitor compared to my B2 and other cheap capacitors. About the physical body and the size of the capsule. This is cool as it is very portable and flexible in place. Comparing the sound quality, the lack of boost in the upper frequencies is immediately apparent. You can not miss it. I think if you're looking for a really versatile mic this is it. If you only want a vocal mic, you might prefer the Bump (page 103). Sound Quality vs. Cheap Condenser Mics: Okay, that's tricky. The difference is less than I expected, but the ball is clearly in Neumann's camp to be the best. What I record is a little less whistling, a little less vampy, hollowed out in the middle with crooked bass and treble boost. It's just better in every way your brain can think of. The catch is that this is actually pretty low, and it also proves that serious, inexpensive mics are tremendous value for the casual/beginner audio enthusiast. As such, I can only really rate this microphone 5 stars; fulfillment of all promises. But I would like to say to readers that if your budget is really tight, some of the cheap capacitors will give you 90% of the experience for a fraction, *literally*, a fraction of the cost. In any case, you walk me to victory; based on your own needs. It's amazing that we have such a wide range of devices. Good luck recording.