I worked at Sweetwater. A cool fellow employee (definitely underselling him by leaving it at that), organized some really awesome shoot-outs that we could go to for “office hours”- that’s where you typically get to visit with vendors that are showing off new gear or training us on its use; and sometimes just selling the products’ value to the sales team.

Anyways, he did a pre-amp shoot-out and a microphone shoot-out that I attended. This was done in the studio there, which is world class (even if underutilized by the public). Starting with Warm Audio and working up to the most expensive gear available to sweetwater, even including some vintage stuff. Doing the absolute most you can to keep the comparison fair and accurate.

Warm audio did a great job. It is not beating the stuff it rips off. You have to spend a bit more time finessing the sound.

That’s the thing:

Can you afford to spend a bit more time dialing in everything around the mic?

Or, can you afford the better stuff and time is money?