Would you buy this mic for $10,724?
Are vintage microphones worth the kind of money they cost? Well I've tried quite a few and compared them with modern microphones. I can give you two answers...
1. Some vintage microphones sound so amazing that they would be worth almost any money.
2. A vintage mic valued at $10,000 might sound amazing, but I would have to wonder whether it actually sounds $9000 more wonderful than a modern $1000 mic.
There's a vintage Neumann M49 for sale on eBay, as a Buy-It-Now rather than an auction. The seller wants £7195 UK pounds for it, which equates to $10,724.15 at eBay's exchange rate.
We don't have any connection with the seller, other than we asked permission to republish the photographs.
Bearing in mind that the sale could end at any time, and that eventually the link will expire, you can view the sale here...
And here, for your convenience, are those lovely photos...
So do you want to buy it?
Well one problem might be that you don't actually know what it sounds like.
I can tell you from experience that different examples of supposedly identical vintage microphones can sound very different to each other. Well, that's what you would expect after half a century of use.
The seller does say that returns are accepted but it would probably be polite to mention it to them if you plan on buying then trying, and possibly returning.
But you might not particularly care what the mic sounds like, as long as it works of course.
What? You don't care what the mic sounds like???
No, not particularly, if you plan on using it as an attraction to your commercial studio.
If you run a studio for hire, a collection of great mics is always a good marketing tool. And really, unless you have one indisputably classy mic, you can't say that you have a top-class studio.
OK so it's time to take action. What's it to be - buying? Or merely drooling at the corners of the mouth?
David Mellor
David Mellor is CEO and Course Director of Audio Masterclass. David has designed courses in audio education and training since 1986 and is the publisher and principal writer of Adventures In Audio.
