Saw a very favorable review of the e250 in the July EQ...wondering if anyone knows how the e250 compares/contrasts with the soundelux e47....particularly interested male rock vocals....

I was surprized to read that review. I compared it to the E47 on female vocals and was incredibly underwhelmed. The 250 seemed dull and one dimensional whereas the E47 knocked me out and i bought it. There's one opinion for you. I would definitely try it before you buy it.

I'm not surprised...the E250 is a really good mic and slots in where we haven't had anything to offer in years past. E250 will have great midrange while the E47 will have great extremes and sound huge...

Funny that many popular rental mics (vintage ones) are typically not very bright. These mics are may be dirty or my just be old but often do not have all that high end in them. Like E LAM251's you hear in rental can be down right dull: less top end but the great 251 mids and bottom. You ask busy AE's why they like "that one" and they say because it works no matter how sibilant the artist is. So we thought it might be a good idea to offer something like a engineer might rent and see how it goes over.

Both the E250 and the E49 have less top end in them than was technically possible. The E250 sounds like a great rock and roll mic with terrific mids, a big proximity effect and that 251 mid thing going on. The proximity effect is not as low as an ELUX, for many studios have rumble problems due to HVAC and extreme low end response may not always be a good thing. The E49 sounds very flat with a top end that balances "extended" against "bright". The idea on both is to sound very natural. Since all these virtues are personal opinion and are dependent on a wide variety of external factors, not everyone will hear it the same way.
Brad

I bought an e250 after comparing it to everything in the whole soundelux line. The e47 sounded boxy and ugly on my voice (male), it did sound huge, but the e250 sounds gigantic on my voice as well; thought it sounded even better than the e251. If needed, I add presence and air with my eq, and it sounds wonderful.

It sounds so good that I don't even run it through a compressor anymore (though I really have to be careful with peaks), as I don't like the slightest change in tone from a compressor (tried the trakker, 1176ln). But forget my opinion definitely try it first. I was going to get an e47 without ever hearing it, thank god I tried it first.

By the way, I'm also using it in combo with an AEA r84 on acoustic guitar and as drum overheads.

Keep in mind that Soundelux mics are EXTREMELY prone to RF pickup. If you live within, say, 10 miles of a radio station, you WILL hear that station unless you take heroic steps.

In my local situation, coiling the excess cable into an approx. 6" diameter and then settiing the power supply on the coil seemed to null the RF pickup,

Bri

I've tested the E250 and the E47 on male/female vocals.

The male vocals, he usually use a U87, raspy, rock vocal. I thought the E47 would sound huge and was expecting a 'sinatra' low yet with some nice silky high... didn't get it.
The low mid is what I would expect to use on a jazz vocal, up close and intimate, however the highs are not too my liking for his vocal character.

Then we tried the E250.

Perfect!!

Low end for the vocal is tight, the highs are silky, bright yet never harsh. (Before using this mic, the engineer eq'd the U87, with 12db shelf, 9db up!!!!) after using E250, he didn't need to eq and later during the mix, I didn't eq the vocal at all!

Fwiw, the preamp used is GT Vipre, with different variables (impedance and rise time).


On another occasion, I borrowed the E250 from my distributor again, and tested it on a female vocal, dance type of music, RnB style. Her vocal cuts through in the full instrumentations and no eq again. Before this, she was using CAD mic (forgot which model, the dual tube ones), U87, C12VR and all of those mics are never right for her.

After using it on several other singers, I really liked how the vocals are bright yet not harsh and it fills the mid really well. I favored E250 for pop recording where the vocals need to be bright.

2 cents,

We've got a few RF sources here in Manhattan and I haven't noticed that Brian. I've got several SD mics and have never had an rf problem with any of them, Neumann's on the other hand...

i've got an e47 and i use it in midtown manhattan, smack dab in the middle of times sq. if there was ever a spot that ought to get rf, i am in it, but i have never heard ANYTHING coming through my e47, even with massive compression going on. it IS quite sensitive to mic stand noise and rumble though - a hpf takes care of that nicely. not sure what brian is talking about.

best,
rlnyc

I'm on the same block as CNN and CBS in Hollywood. E49 & U195, no problems ever!

Sorry for the hijack but, have anyone compared those with Peluso' 22 47 and 22 251?
Thanks.
I

OK, I'll chalk up the RF problems to a string of incredibly bad luck. I'm resonably certain it afflicted at least two Soundelux mics in the same studio, but not any other mics in any fashion. What was odd is that the RFI was from KRXO at 107.7 mHz! Their TX site is approx. 4-5 miles from the afflicted studio.

I also spotted another thread:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/36565-rf-hell.html

and an E47 user in San Francisco was also having RF problems. Perhaps two of us are having terrible luck......

Bri

RF is a tricky thing
at one of the studios i used to record at, the engineer was having RF troubles untill he got rid of the Blue Kiwi mic cable, and replaced it with a cheap HOSA

you never know what's going to happen
i have a soundelux ifet7 and a soundelux e47 haven't had problems with either

brad, i know you sell both, is the brauner vm-1 better than the soundelux?

Impossible to answer, just as it is impossible to answer if an E250 is better than a E47. Depends on the application and the room and the singer. Brauners are very different (in sound) from Soundelux mics so the same issues are in play: it depends.

What I can say is this:
Brauner builds a mic line that shares a particular character and has smaller differences between models, all unique compared to other mics, new or old. The Phantom AE sounds like "a Brauner", as does a Valvet Voice or a VM1. Bandwidth is different, tone and clarity is different, basic rolloff are different but they share a common theme. The VMA offers a new sound for Brauner and the VM1KHE is also a new or "different" sound for Brauner, so those are the exceptions. They are unique and different from the rest of the line (and also the most expensive). Brauners work for folks BECAUSE they are different from all others.

In Soundelux, there is no family sound, no "sounds like a soundelux". Each mic is completely different. David Bock wants his range of mics to live together in one studio at the same time and all used on one record. The idea is a complete "set" of sounds to work with, not do a good better best thing. Great studios have a range of mics, their mic locker, to cover the different needs of different engineers and different artists. Soundelux has targeted this idea as its main objective. In great rooms these mics sound a lot like the models they are named for. They work in the same situations. They are different from each other like a well equipped mic locker would be.

When you wrestle with the desire to assign values to mics that are truly portable -meaning what you describe is the same sound the other person hears-you fail. Mics do not sound the same everywhere. Since mics are acoustic devices like speakers, the acoustic setting (the room) is the invisible partner to the sound. In one room an ELUX might rock your world on a singer. That same singer in another room on an ELUX into the same preamp and heard over the same monitors might be way wrong. Only the room changed but the sound was way different.

For those of us in the mic business, as much as we would like to say "the XYZ mic is THE mic for big male vocals", we can all think of about 10 examples from clients off the top of our heads that defy that recommendation. A studio who tried an E250 liked it better than an U47 on this one client; a studio that tried a U99 liked it better than a old 67 he had (that was probably not working right); a studio that tried an E49 liked the original M49 he had more because it was darker, etc. A good example is Brauner VM1's on Orchestra and Scoring and Choirs, all distant applications: they almost always win over whatever the client tries. Very few E LAM251's in omni in orchestra anymore. Yet, one time I sent both a Brauner VM1 and ELUX to Mormon Tabernacle Choir, they picked 5 ELUX's in omni over the Brauner. So there you go. Its all about the room.

Questions about applications in forums are tough, for people DO want to know about this. You will see the more experienced of the posters tell you what they use and where. What's important to gain from that is not so much that "a 47 is the mic for male vocals" but that a proper 47 is different from a proper vintage 251 in the following ways: a, b, c, etc. Those "comparison" values are more portable and have some meaning. Be suspicious of "absolutes" (I tried a old tube 47 and it sucked compared to my new XYZ) you see thrown around sometimes.

Brad

for male vocals. i'mtrying to decide between the vm-1 and the e250. i want a very big sound with a smooth top end but lots of air.

which is the beteter mic

I did an A B between 2 U47's and the E47. U47's in general had more punch in the lower mids E47 had more air on top. Bottom end was a little more massive (Almost too much on one of them) on the U47's. I did the test with NEVE 1073's and API 312's through an GML 8900 or Urei 1176. They were both fantastic on several male vox. I ended up purchasing the E47, mainly due to the cost. Love it.

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