It’s finally here! After a lot of scheduling conflicts, an expensive C24 repair, and an AES-induced heater short – we finally finished our shootout of the Vanguard V24 Stereo Tube Condenser against a vintage C24!

(skip to 34 minutes for the shootout portion if the interview is too boring for ya!)

Thanks to Josh at JML Studios for hosting me and shooting this video. You can follow him on YouTube for more cool stuff including his custom plate reverb build, other vintage vs modern mic shootouts, and more!

A few notes:

1. the first part of the video is an interview, feel free to skip ahead to 34 minutes to get to the shootout.
2. We’ve uploaded all the comparison clips to our SOUNDCLOUD – and you can download the WAV files here.
3. Josh’s C24, like many, has been repaired several times and isn’t QUITE to “stock” configuration. Here’s the changes:
   • The capsules were reskinned and tuned by Stephen Paul to 3µm diaphragms.
   • The transformer coupling caps (metallized paper in the original C24) were changed to 1.1uf/100V metallized polycarbonate capacitors by Stephen Paul.
   • The PSU had all-new electrolytic caps put in it at some point.
   • The tube is a NOS 12AT7 instead of the prescribed GE 5-star 6072.