Oktava MKL-2500

I managed to get an early one - pre-Chinese fiasco. The stock cable leaves something to be desired, but that's easily remedied with Mogami's tube mic cable and a soldering iron.

It's a fairly decent sounding mic, stock. Not a Neumann or B.L.U.E., but more character than an AT3035 to be sure.

It gets noticeably better when it's modded. I removed the so-called "high frequency resonance disks" from the capsule, and this alone improved the sound significantly. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, or have it done for you. Screw up your capsule and you're done - all it takes is one slip of the screwdriver. As with most Oktavas, there are other mods that can be done as well for a reasonable price.

I've used this mic on female and male vocals with results that varied from incredible to not so satisfying. It really depends on the room, the artist's voice and singing style, preamps, and other factors. I've been very happy with this mic for acoustic guitars, and also electric guitars - a 2x12 closed back cab miced from about a foot away with a 57 and the 2500 both in line with the edge of the speaker and pointing in toward the dust cap. I found this to give me the closest sound to what I hear in the room.

Overall, I would say this shouldn't be your first or only mic, but it can make a unique and useful addition to your arsenal.

I've been making music a long time. My first studio experience was in the 60's, and have worked "both sides of the glass" since then. I'm an ASCAP composer/publisher member, as well as an AES member. I own a project studio, utilizing both analog and digital hardware.

This is an Oktava MKL-2500 tube LDC mic, purchased at Guitar Center.

This appears to be a genuine Russian-built Oktava mic (it has a serial number on the XLR collar, and the pot inside the mic has Russian letters on it), with a Chinese-made power supply (the components don't look Russian, specifically, the caps, connectors, transformer and clamshell enclosure have English text on them, and they are not poorly assembled). Also, the mic/cable/power supply came in a molded plastic box, not a wooden box.

When I first fired up the mic, there was a low level hum, which appeared to be caused by poor shielding or a ground-loop. After doing some online research, the hum was caused by a missing jumper on the mic end of the cable. After soldering a jumper from the cable shield to the connector shield, the hum was gone.

As far as the performance of the mic is concerned, it sounds very good; nice, warm, somewhat dark-sounding, like many of the older German tube condenser mics. It seems to excel at capturing male and female vocals (especially "bright" sounding vocals). It's quite sensitive too, so buying a shock-mount would be a good investment. All in all, I'm impressed with this mic (especially for $90 new), and it will add another "color" to my mic collection.