Many thanks to the fine fellas at Retro City Studios for the fantastic mic shootout/nerd party last week in Philadelphia! Good times and good food were had by all. And even better, we have the shootout results!

Some of the mics we tested:

VANGUARD

• Vanguard V44S gen2 Stereo FET Condenser
• Vanguard V4 gen2 Stereo FET Condenser
• Vanguard V13 gen2 Tube Condenser
• Vanguard V1 gen2 Multi-Capsule FET Pencil Condenser
• Vanguard V24 Stereo Tube Condenser
• Vanguard V14 Variable-Voltage Tube Condenser

NON-VANGUARD

• Wunder CM7 Suprema Tube Condenser
• AKG C414EB P48 FET Condenser(vintage)
• Shure VP88 Stereo Condenser
• AEA R88 Stereo Ribbon
• Altec M20 (vintage) Pencil Condenser
• Mojave MA-100 Tube Pencil Condenser
• AKG 451E FET Pencil Condenser
• Bock 251 Tube Condenser
• Josephson C42 Pencil Condenser

Below you can hear the results on three instruments – acoustic guitar, grand piano, and a minimalist drum kit, all in Retro City’s fantastic-sounding main room. And of course, the high-resolution 96/24 files can be downloaded here and dragged into your DAW of choice for a better shootout experience! These files were roughly level-matched via meter. All mics were run through the same preamps with no compression, EQ, or any other processing – before or after. The only editing done was reducing the length of the files and using gain to roughly match them. Other than that, these are the raw, unfiltered results.