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rstreber · 23rd July 2008

I just finished demoing one from Mercenary, and I loved it. Bought one, but wish I had the budget for a pair. It's a beautiful sounding, looking, and solidly built mic. I I put it up against an early 80's KM84, a Gefell M295, and some LD mics as well (CM7GT, UMT70s, Valvet), and in all applications I tried, I found it extremely nice. (incidentally, I was demoing both the 260 and the M295 from Merc, and I picked the Tele over the Gefell easily.)

It was very similar to the KM84, maybe a bit more articulate and airy. I was most impressed with how it handled solo steel-string/voice alone. For a single-mic mono recording, it was amazingly 3-d and realistic. I also used it as a spot mic on viola in some contemporary classical chamber-music sessions. It sounded lovely here and the hypercard capsule was great for extra rejection of surrounding instruments. I didn't try the omni capsule, but I've got a number of dedicated omnis and probably won't use this one so much for such things.

Anyway, my $.02 on these. Tele-USA has gotten such a bad reputation, and I was expecting to b disappointed in this. But, on the contrary, I found it to be a very exciting and impressive mic.

23rd July 2008	#26
rstreber Gear nut Joined: Feb 2004 Location: Yonkers, NY Posts: 81	I just finished demoing one from Mercenary, and I loved it. Bought one, but wish I had the budget for a pair. It's a beautiful sounding, looking, and solidly built mic. I I put it up against an early 80's KM84, a Gefell M295, and some LD mics as well (CM7GT, UMT70s, Valvet), and in all applications I tried, I found it extremely nice. (incidentally, I was demoing both the 260 and the M295 from Merc, and I picked the Tele over the Gefell easily.) It was very similar to the KM84, maybe a bit more articulate and airy. I was most impressed with how it handled solo steel-string/voice alone. For a single-mic mono recording, it was amazingly 3-d and realistic. I also used it as a spot mic on viola in some contemporary classical chamber-music sessions. It sounded lovely here and the hypercard capsule was great for extra rejection of surrounding instruments. I didn't try the omni capsule, but I've got a number of dedicated omnis and probably won't use this one so much for such things. Anyway, my $.02 on these. Tele-USA has gotten such a bad reputation, and I was expecting to b disappointed in this. But, on the contrary, I found it to be a very exciting and impressive mic.