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Originally Posted by bee  That doesn't surprise me at all. I've been interested in a couple of Telefunken USA products...but asking Ian questions about them was like pulling teeth. Seems like they don't want you to ask questions about their products and just expect you to shut up and buy them. They need help in PR department. |
Whoo-hoo!!!
Ian is probably the second most over worked person at TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik... I however am not... so, if there are any questions you would like answered please feel free to ask. You can feel free to ask anything you'd like publicly and I'll be happy to give you the straightest answer possible, or you can ask me privately at
cnf@t-funk.com
I was hired in April of '09 to deal with these kinds of matters. The thread seemed to stop sometime in '08 so I think you can understand the gap.
So... here we are with the ELA M 260... which currently resides in the "R-F-T" offerings from TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik. This is the same line that offers the AK-47, the soon to be discontinued M-16 mkII and the soon to be released AR-51.
I'm not as familiar with the ELA M 260 as I am with most of the other products [sorry, I'm still on a bit of a learning curve], but I do know that the ELA M 260 comes with 3 capsules all built in China and rigorously tested to insure they meet specification in South Windsor, CT. The amplifier is based around a NOS TELEFUNKEN EF-732 tube [which is similar to an AC-701 but far less expensive and we have a few thousand in stock]. The power supply is also made in China... I believe the cable is made in Switzerland and assembled in the US but I'm not 100% sure of that... never thought to ask.
If you check out t-funk.com the website is VERY clear that this microphone is not a recreation of the original ELA M 260. From what I have been able to gather if a "historically accurate" recreation were to be made it would have to "street" in the $2500-$3k+ range which probably wouldn't find much of an audience [I know I sure as hell wouldn't buy one for that price when I could find a Shoeps M-221b or Neumann KM-56 for around the same price].
That said, on a sonic level the current iteration of the "R-F-T ELA M 260" is a pretty damn good sounding system [yeah, of course I'm biased... but there seem to be quite a few others who are relatively unbiased who agree with my observation].
Rather than taking anyone's word for it, I would encourage you to contact your favorite TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik reseller and arrange a demo of the mic in your studio, on your music, at your leisure.
As a note to "Plush"... I sincerely wish that the Chinese were not involved with Tibet in any manner or form. I sincerely wish that the Dali Lama could return from exile and continue his work. Unfortunately, this [along with peace in the middle east] is out of the grasp of my control. Even more unfortunate is that global economics continue to support these egregious human rights violations. At TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik we do all we can to manufacture as much as possible in the US. We just do not have the infrastructure to support building small diaphragm capsules in the US.
We have the infrastructure to build the amplifiers, so we do. We have very high standards of quality control for the capsules included in the microphones [the rejection rate is higher than anyone at T-funk would like]. We do what we can, but there are unfortunate economic realities in play here... realities that can not be worked around at this point and time. Hopefully in the future they can be worked around, but that day [unfortunately] ain't to-day.
Peace.