CAD M9 valve mic
By Kurt Foster
Aug 4, 2004, 14:35
In the beginning (maybe the middle), there were tubes. And the tubes
were good! Condenser mics used tubes, amplifiers used tubes and the record
cutters used tubes. The recording engineers saw that it was good and the
engineers said, "Let there be musical recordings!" All the recordings were
made using the tube. A joy spread across the land as the people enjoyed
high fidelity music in their homes for the very first time. And it was
good, very good in fact! And the world was one and happy!
Then a person in a laboratory owned by a large communications corporation,
invented a replacement for the tube, the transistor. It was smaller, lighter,
more efficient, ran cooler and lasted longer. But all was not good. Many
audio enthusiasts said the transistor did not sound as good as the tube.
It was sterile sounding. It did not have the dimension, warmth or the airy
sizzle that tubes did. It was not organic. When overdriven to clipping,
transistors boosted uneven harmonics and did not sound as musical as tubes.
And a great sadness spread across the landscape of the audio community.
That was almost 50 years ago and we are still debating the pluses and
minuses of tube vs. transistor. With the advent of digital recording the
problem of sterile audio was exacerbated even further. No longer could
the recordists rely on tape compression, head bump and generational loss
to take the edge off of their tracks imparted by transistor designs. In
many cases these early digital recordings were overly bright and harsh
sounding. The knee jerk reaction to the problem was a return to vintage
tube mics and mic pre amps.
Coinciding (actually preceding) with the dawn of the digital age, home
recording equipment was coming into vogue. The advent of really useable
narrow gauge tape based recorders, more affordable mixers and processing
gear and then later, affordable digital systems proliferated rapidly. But
the expense of vintage tube mics and equipment was prohibitive to all but
the most well heeled home recording enthusiast. Vintage German tube mics
could cost as much as $10,000 and there was often no guarantees that your
investment would last any length of time without failing, or that what
you were purchasing (often on the internet) was really what it was represented
as. Very often a damaged or worn capsule or some other component may have
been replaced and unscrupulous sellers would lie to you saying the piece
was "vintage" and original. Recognizing and responding to this problem,
some very smart manufactures have began to produce some very nice but affordable
tube based and tube hybrid mics aimed at the project studio demographic.
The subject of this article the CAD M9 (list priced at $599.00
but "streeting" around $300.00), from the well known and respected
Ohio based audio equipment manufacturer Conneaut Audio Devices, is an externally
biased true condenser microphone. Built in the U.S.A., the M9 is a hybrid
type mic, featuring a fixed cardioid pattern, large diaphragm, single tube
design that employs "servo valve technology". For those of you who wonder
what the heck that means, it is a cross of topologies, with a 12AX7 tube
being used for the head amp and a a high speed dual opamp (chip) being
used to balance and amplify the output.
Description
The M9 employs the MV200 external analog power supply. It comes fully
accessorized with a 30 foot, 7 pin proprietary cable with gold plated male
and female XLR connectors for use between the mic and the power supply,
the power supply, a standard mic clip and shock mount, packaged in an aluminum
flight case for under $500! CAD includes an individual frequency
response plot for each mic, an unheard of practice at this price point,
that demonstrates to me, how confident they are in the performance of the
M9. Demonstrative of this confidence in the product, the M9 carries a full
two year warranty!
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| CAD M9 package |
