Point and shoot! This cardioid mic is a wonderful addition to any radio station or voice over studio's setup! It is great because of it's sweet proximity effect and is as easy to use as any cardioid only solid state mic should be, all you do is add phantom power and turn up the gain!
The TLM-103 is a FET amplified, transformer-less balanced microphone, no fancy tubes or pieces of iron in here! But what you do get is a perfectly designed grill, beautiful body and one of the best capsules manufactured on planet Earth.
The microphone itself is featureless and doesn't have any pad's, filters or extra patterns, but in cardioid you'd be pressed to fine another microphone that sounds so well on voice for the money, regardless whether it's radio, commentators, voice over or even rap. When it comes to the human voice it excels; however, it is not my first choice for a singer. It can be used for that and if it is the only the mic in the locker and can do almost anything, but for singers, there are better mics for less; same goes for most instruments.
However, for drums it can be a great multipurpose tool! Snare, hihat, overheads, front of kick, mono room mic, and toms (boy oh boy toms!) this mic can do it all! I wouldn't necessarily use it for that, just incase the drummer misses and hit the mic, since replacement head cost's about $400 if I'm not mistaken. Still, for toms it is wonderful, floor tom too.
Overall, this mic is a great intro mic to the Neumann brand so as to get clients in studios and wonderful tool. Two thumbs way up!
