Golden Age Audio Project R1 active Mk3

Excellent as a first ribbon mic and a good second mic for those starting out. The sound - while not as precise as top-end ribbons - is really rounded and lovely, giving a warm glow to guitar cabs, vocals and strings especially, with a wonderfully solid and detailed low end. The advantage of an active ribbon is that you don't need a super clean preamp with 70dB gain - the preamps on most budget/mid-range audio interfaces with phantom power are powerful enough to drive this mic.

Like all ribbons, the mic produces a small but noticeable amount of background hiss. It is therefore unsuitable for very sensitive applications where a lot of dynamic range needs to be captured or where hiss will be a problem. I have used a pair of these mics in blumlein and MS configurations with very good results on instruments like piano that have then been layered in a mix - the presentation is excellent and the stereo field comes to life in a very natural way not possible with other miking configurations, and the benefit of having the wonderful ribbony goodness outweighs the slight issue of the hiss.

Sorry to say that this mic was a big disappointment.
From the moment of unpacking it looks like a very cheap Chinese build mic with the back-plate (XLR input) not straight constructed. Also there were solder splutters on the cable.. not to nice :(

When testing it started out good, while this is a very nice sounding mic after 15 minutes or so it started making lots of noise and it became unworkable.
I send it back as fast as possible unfortunately.

Maybe this was a case of bad luck with the noise, but the overall construction of the mic I eyed and felt very cheap and fast build.

I'm very pleased with this microphone. I've found it to suit a wide variety of voices and sources (Male vox, female vox, guitar, violin, ukulele, harmonica, double bass). It hasn't worked well with various saxophones, which was a surprise. It's often the first mic I try on vocalists as it's got a lovely silky-smooth top end, and I've found it's less sensitive to dynamics, so it needs less compression and EQ than the more usual large diaphragm condensers. It definitely has it's own retro, less-hifi sound, which I happen to love. Loads of vibe, plus it looks great, the clients are always impressed. It can be a little awkward to position, due to the location of the cable, though. I think it's a bargain.