Superlux Pro 218A

Great value at this price

The performance is nothing special, but at this price range, it is excellent. Weighty mic, very solidly built. No quality concerns that I can see

Wow!

More than meets the eye! I was surprised by the quality of sound,nice beefy bass drum. Purchased for test purposes,now it won't go away from my drumkit!!! Well done!

Impressed

Solid build and nice clean appearance. Damped integrated holder is a plus. Thumb screw wing big and easy to grab. Tight sound. High end yes, bottom yes but not a boomer (a good thing). This is a good universal mic to have in your sack and for the price don't think twice. Have this and the T bone kick mic and you'll have a number of differing applications covered.

best for the price!

couldn't ask for a better quality on this price range, honestly 100% satisfied!

it's also pretty solid, which is a great pro

Great Bass drum mic

It's hard to find a Price vs. quality mic better than this. It have and amazing sound on low frequencies. I recommend this microphone.

Very decent for the price

Has a nice bass frequency response.

I use it for bass drums and bass amps.

I also used it for making some foley effects for a short movie, which was nice for background effects and the mic doesn't pick up the high end, thus naturally sounding darker than condenser for example.

Speaking of which, it does sound quite dark I found, which is expected, but you'd need to play around with the EQ to get a good sound out of it. Then again, that's not necessarily a problem, I personally love EQing.

Anyway, a nice entry level mic.

If you're on a budget and you're into crafting your sound, you won't be limited by the capabilities of this mic.

Great value!

This is one of four Superlux mic's I've bought,in this case for home recording....

In terms of sound I didn't expect it would match high end types and I don't think any other purchaser would either but it gives us noticeably better results than just plonking an SM of either type in front and for very little outlay....well worth considering if you're looking to get a bit closer to a "real" studio sound...its been well worth the relatively small outlay here...

Bargain Mic

I have had this mic for a while now, and have used it on a variety of instruments and voices in the process of testing it.

The build quality is impressive. The mic is nicely heavy, and the grille feels tight to the body. I don't imagine the mic would be easily damaged if cared for well.

I recently got the chance to test it against industry standards, the AKG D112 and the Sennheiser E602, on a nice kick drum in the studio. I recorded the three mics with the kick on its own and then again as part of a full kit performance to see how they compare in the mix.

First things first, the AKG and Senn both beat the 218A out in both tests, as can be imagined. Also note that I prefer the sound of the 602 to the D112 in general.

The Superlux is noticeably duller and boomier that the other mics, due to its mid scoop and bump in the bass. This means that dry, there was no question which I would use. However, with some clever EQ the dullness and boominess were corrected to within completely usable levels.

If you have the mentioned industry standards, don't be fooled, you will not get the same sound from this mic. However, if, as with me, budget is an important factor, you could consider this mic, knowing that it requires a bit of work to get the best from it.

I have not had a chance to test other budget kick mics in this price range, but I was impressed with the performance of this one, and consider it a worthy purchase for those on a budget.

Surprisingly good kick drum mic!!!

I ordered this to mic up my 70's Slingerland kick drum. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, so I had no great expectations for this mic.

I was pleasantly surprised!!!!! The build quality is excellent! Very solid! The sound quality is also very good. For the price this mic is a no brainer. An excellent mic for the money.

I probably would have paid more :-)

Nice kick drum microphone

We just recorded drums for a demo with our band and because of busy schedules we found it hard to get everybody in a studio at the same time. As a consequence we decided to do it all by ourselves and spread the recording out over several sessions. That meant getting our own microphones and for the drum sessions we used this microphone for the kick drum.

This microphone performed well. Off course, you can get better results with more expensive microphones but we managed to get some really great drum recordings using the "Glyn Johns" method that (for us) involved this microphone on the kick drum, a SM58 on the snare drum, an overhead condenser pointing down at the snare drum, and a matching condenser positioned to the right over the ride, also pointing to the snare. Combining those four tracks turned out to give us some great drum sounds for the demo.

I would buy again!