Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young
It's great to look at specs, and with low-end mics, noise is one of the biggest potential problems. But for people with less experience than some of the members here, it's hard to know what these numbers mean in practice, and there are so many variables. For me, the bottom line is whether it sounds good. The AT2020 is certainly not a "great" mic, you definitely get better as you move up the food chain (even within the AT line, things get noticably better as you get higher models). No idea about the Rode M5. But, especially for the price, the 2020 can get the job done. I have a pair that I grabbed just because it's hard to resist a half-way decent mic at that price point.
Here's a short recording I did with the AT2020s into a Zoom H6 a while back, tweaked a bit in Logic (No noise reduction, just some EQ, reverb, etc). You can maybe get some idea of whether the AT2020's can achieve results that are acceptable to you or not:
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I agree that the AT mics get noticeably better as you go up the food chain. I have a handful of 4050s because they are great "Swiss army knife" mics. They work on almost everything and sound good.
That recording is quite nice. It says more than nay specs or technical data can. And wth a modest preamp too.
And you're 100% right. It comes down to sound. In the words of Joe Meek "if it sounds good, it is good."