CAD Trion 6000

I am not really a musician. I am a passable singer I am an audiofile a Data/Voice communications engineer, and have a degree in electronics. I got into recording a couple of years ago. I have many musical friends, and am deeply involved in the Hand Drumming community. I am a drum maker, and sound engineer for a drum group as well as a folk group and a Kirtan group. My studio is in my basement, and being a Tech Weenie, I have it heavily acoustically treated and have 2 isolation booths. My Degree in electronics, and extreme technical abilities qualify me to have a somewhat uniquely different perspective of the sound recording process than a musician. My studio partner is a musician of 40 years, who still gigs 2 times a week in a rock band, and he concurs on everything I am saying.

The Trion 8000 is a tube condenser with a very large diaphragm. 1 1/8".
It has omni, figure 8, and cardiod patterns. There is a Float switch on the power supply. I have used this mic extensively. I have compared it to other LDCs including several of the high end MXLs, the Nady tube mic. Perception 220, and everything else I can get my hands on. When I bought this mic, I was considering an MXL Genesis. I love this mic but have never had the opportunity to use the Genesis. Although I have never had the opportunity to use any High End mics. I can tell you how this one compares to the low and upper medium mics. Please continue reading and I will you just how amazing this mic is.

This is my Go to mic. I have used it on Acoustic Guitar, Many wind instruments, Vocals, A drum kit, Djembes, Ashikos, Doumbecs, Djuns, Shakers, and all types of bells, etc and piano.

Positioning. This mic is absolutely not for close micing anything. It is extremely sensative, and picks up everything which falls within its ON axis area. The off axis rejection is far better than any other Mic I have had experience with.

You can mic a whole kit with this one mic if you are not looking for In your face drums. The symbols toms and bass sound very natural. I believe if I had a big enough room treated well enough, you could get away with this mic alone for a kit even for in your face, of course. you relinquish control over individual levels.

To give you an idea just how sensitive this mic is I will tell you that you can record an acoustic guitar from 3-4 feet away and it will sound like it is 4 inches away from the strings. The bass response is amazing and so is the high end. If I had to give this thing any negative criticism it would be that the mid is slightly scooped. SLIGHTLY!, and it could use a pad and rolloff. The mid scoup makes it work very well for nearly anything. A slight amount of EQ levels it out, and there seems to be no way to properly eq any other mid priced mics I have tried because their week spots actually distort slightly. Not with this one. This sounds nothing like any other cheep condenser I have ever heard. No extreme brightness, No brashness, no muddy or boomy bass nothing.. and it is not dark or distant sounding.

I can think of nothing I wouldn't use this mic for except close micing anything. If you don't have a pretty good room to record in, don't buy this, It is just sensitive. If you have a good recording environment, which by the way is your real best bang for buck, this is the best budget mic for you. If I could have only one type of mic, I would leave this one behind, because you have to be able to close mic hand drums when they are playing in a group, and this just wouldn't handle that. For that purpose I would use Audix I5s. For any other purpose, or to record one or 2 hand drums, this is my mic of choice. This thing Rocks! The CAD bashing should stop here!

I use various equipment to record with and play back. just like the rest of us. lots of stuff that you use for different things. right now i'm after some good quality mics. and that's how i ended up w/ a CAD6000

This is a decent mic for the money. It gets bad reviews here and other places it gets raving reviews. even in this same site but under a different name. And this is the clincher. This is the EXACT same mic as the CAD GXL3000. Now go read what people say about that one. Go figure?

I leaned this from Mike Joly of Oktavamod. He has a mod for this mic that will take it over the edge. You need to invest about 400 bucks more but then you'll have a mic that "you can stand up to any $2,000 mic" said Mr. Joly.

I JUST bought another one today, but in the GXL3000 casing. Paid under a 100 bucks delivered. When the money is right I'll have Mr. Joly modify them and have a set of matched killer mics for under a grand saving me 3K plus.

In that respect this is a great mic!! But I was lucky this has a mod for it.

I've been recording for a couple of decades and have a good selection of new and vintage mic pres.

What a truly bizarre microphone the Trion 6000 is. It has a huge hole where the lower mids are supposed to be. The mids are where the essence of the human voice should be - they are badly lacking in this mic.

The off-axis response of this mic is nasty, but the omni pickup pattern is absolutely terrible. Really, it sounds like it's still in figure-8 mode. Sources more than about 30 degrees off axis start to lose the highs until everything over a couple of hundred Hz is gone!

If you are old enough to remember the very first prototype mics to come out of China, you will get some idea of how this thing sounds... really, really bad.

I record mostly in my project studio to Sonar 6 via Motu 2408 Mk III and 24i/o interfaces. I record my own and other local bands. I have CAD, Audio Techinca, Shure, Rode, and other mics. Been doing this about 18 years.

The Trion 6000 is a dual large diaphragm condenser mic with the typical 3 polar patterns (cardioid, figure-8, omni). The mic is of the lolly-pop design and has a transformer-balaned output stage. I purchased this mic on a bit of a whim as CAD seemed to have some big names talking up their new Trion range.

The first thing that struck me when auditioning the mic was it's high self-noise. The Trion 6000 is easily the noisiest mic I own and is very noisey by todays standards. The mic sounds a little scooped in the mids to me, with an edgey top end, not particularly accurate.

Testing in Omni mode, the mic has some serious high frequency nulls at the sides. I know all omnis will suffer this a little, but the Trion's nulls are particularly apparent. By comparison, my AT4050 is much more linear around the circumference.

In cardioid mode, the mic sounds a little similar to a Studio Projects C1, only thinner, and as mentioned before, with much more self noise.

To my ears, the Trion 6000 is a poor mans Studio Projects C1 (or C3 if you want multi patterns). I am very unlikely to keep this mic.