Great comparison. All 3 sound really great depending on what vocal flavor you're going for. 414 for crisp clarity. OC for a more forward sound, WA has a nice mellow darkness that is shockingly useful for a moody track without going full on 47ish sound.
Consider this: OC818 has separate outputs for the two capsules, thus enable the user to record them separately. The mic is configurable via Bluetooth on characteristics and level on both capsules. That gives them an infinite pickup pattern to suit the desirable performance. That’s what you get for the money. The capsule is based on C12 (from AKG). Austrian Audio are launched by staff from AKGs former Austrian factory that desired to keep the legacy on world leading microphone technology.
Good comparison. The OC818 sounds really fine, greatly balanced, first choice and not quite as forward as the 414. The WA14 has a nice balance too,fairly mellow
It's what you prefer personally. I've got an AKG C-414 B-ULS next to me as I'm writing this (had it for over 10 years) and the Warm Audio clone to me, sounds better.
I was thinking the same. XLii has a very clear presence. While the OC818 had a fuller low mid.. Then WA14. I thought it was thin at first but with the FX I was very impressed! All great mics. Depends on what you want to use it for :)
We need to also hear the tone of a male vocal, to hear how the mics characteristics perform with a male voice as well as a female. Always do male and female vocal recordings please?
All three sound great. The C414 is a bit more aggressive, with some distortion on the higher spectrum. This makes it pretty ideal for e.guitar recording and something haveing use of this crisp. The OC818 sound bloody good. I would have loved to hear it on various instruments. Butt the WA-14 are the clear winner, not because of the sound, but for the whole package. You have a great sounding mic, that can do everything the two others are doing for HALF THE PRICE. I just checked and I could get 5 WA-14 for the price of 2 C414 or OC818. For me, the big question is about the SE4400.
@@gelatosamurai I was impressed with the WA14 after the fx! OC818 definitely had that lower mid freq. But still very smooth. For vocals I think my preference would be either the xlii or the wa14.
Hi Veikster - thanks so much for your kind words and for watching. All the sounds in the intro are from the OP-1, synth and drums using the “Finger” Sequencer. The compression is from the OP-1 is the “Bus” compressor from it too - best thing I’ve ever bought!! Sending all my best X
The 414's preamp is trying its best to smooth out everything about her voice. It's a nice effect but it's still an effect. The 818 just lays it all out there, 100% unapologetic. The WA-14 sounds like a voiceover mic, who else would want that much proximity effect built into a large diaphragm condenser? I think it's going to take a while before Warm Audio comes around to building transparent anything and AKG's new masters just don't care. That capsule in the Austrian Audio mic is just magical.
When you get to this level of quality, which is best depends on the source and personal opinion. To simply say that one is clearly 'better' than the others is just plain daft!
I doubt AKG is better the company was sold and people left to create Austrian Audio and Lewitt so Akg was under new ownership so quality can’t be the same that’s why c414 uls was better. c414 xl2 and xls is made by the new company owner so I doubt the quality is the same.
AKG was bought in 1993 by Harman. In 2017 Harman itself was bought by Samsung and Harman closed AKG's headquarters and factory in Vienna, Austria that year. The C414 XLS and XLII however were still developed in Vienna (I guess some of the people involved in the development of these two microphones work at Austrian Audio now) as well as produced there for a couple of years.
