recordinghacks

BidirectionalAvant Electronics CR-14

MSRP: $259 Bidirectional Ribbon Microphone

Avant Electronics CR-14

Description

The CR-14 is a passive dual-ribbon design in an unusual form-factor — flat and rectangular. The second ribbon motor increases the mic’s sensitivity and output level (although a lot of clean gain is still needed for quiet sources).

The mic is sold by Alctron as the HRM-14, but appears to actually be manufactured by ShuaiYin; see their model SYR-50.

The front and back of the mic produce different sounds, making this mic less suitable for use in mid-side applications.

Common ribbon-mic mods apply — for example, internal blast filters and baffling can be removed to open up the mic’s sound, at a cost of requiring an external pop filter during vocal use. The stock transformer can be upgraded, e.g. to a Lundahl LL2912; see the sidebar link to a Gearslutz exchange featuring before-and-after audio samples.

Includes a padded wooden storage box and suspension shockmount, all of which fits in the included metal road case.

Electronic Musician

the CR-14 is fairly quiet, though I found it still exhibits the lower output you’d expect from a passive ribbon design, based on my experience with older beyerdynamics and newer Royer models. As with any ribbon mic, you’ll want to use the cleanest high-gain preamp you can get your hands on.

The Avant Electronics CR-14 is also known as: CR14.

Pickup Patterns Pads & Filters
  • Bidirectional (30 - 15,000 Hz)
Ribbon Construction Impedance Max SPL
dual 35x5mm, 2-micron aluminum ribbons 600 Ohms (Low (50-1000 Ohms)) 145 dB
Weight Length Max Diameter Interface(s)
496g (17.50oz) 175mm (6.89'') 37mm (1.46'')
  • 3-pin XLR male (1)
Power Specifications

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