"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message

In article ,
Iain M Churches wrote:
That a very large percentage of microphones
used in digital recordings are valve microphones.

Iain, it would help if you provided a reference when quoting - it's
the convention, as well as the polite thing to do.

Oh dear :-((

Neumann 49, 50, 56, 64 and U87 are very
popular.

They indeed are. Although I've never seen a valve U87. And mine
certainly aren't.

AFAIK, and as far as my references seem to know, the U87 always came from
the factory as solid state. There have been tube retrofit kits for them,
but...

Don't believe me? of course you don't:-)
Check the AES Journal (of which I am sure you are
a member, as the A stands for Audio and the E for
Engineering)

As a rule, AES articles don't mention specific products.

Also read some of the excellent recent
articles in Studio Sound,
to which I am sure you subscribe.

But very large percentage? You'd have to be rather more specific.

How about very large percentage of tubed microphones? ;-)

Perhaps a fair percentage of recordings might involve the use of some
valve microphone. As a percentage of mics used in all recordings, it
would be small.

Agreed. It is generally understood that a very large proportion (most???) of
the *professional* microphones in the world are either Shure SM57 and close
derivatives or EV 635 and close derivatives. Both are magnetic, entirely
passive and contain no active components such as tubes.