Re: It’s official: Austrian Audio

[Jay Vaughan]

Hi Matt!

> Cool! Give us the Music-Bar rundown of the current offerings.
> I am often asked to recommend mics and headphones. 


First of all: Austrian Audio is what became of AKG’s Viennese engineering team after the brand was sold off to Samsung.  So if you’ve already got some slightly older AKG gear in your midst, chances are it was designed by the same folks.  Austrian Audio are continuing the tradition of producing really good quality, high value for money headphones and microphones, with all of AKG’s heritage understanding and technology of engineering these products at hand.

OC818 - an excellent, truly great value for money, powerhouse studio condenser microphone with multi polar patterns, suitable for anything you can throw at it really - we’ve got them at Sky Studio, where Phil (Sky Master Engineer/Onwer) has been using them with great success to record violin, vocals, drums and wind instruments, along with a lot of vocal takes.  These are the standard powerhouse, workhorse microphones that can be configured for almost any acoustic situation and I’m yet to hear of anyone from the Sky Studio circle not being satisfied with these over, say, the Neumann and R0DE mics we also have available in the workshop.  They are that great.  (If you get an OC818, please be sure to add the remote control accessory so you can switch polar patterns from the control room over Bluetooth..) 

OC18 - the OC818’s more affordable ‘little brother’ - same CKR-style ceramic capsule technology (made in Vienna!), just single diaphragm. (And thus reduced polar settings.)  You can match-pair the OC18 and OC818’s together so you can get a bigger cardioid region - an ideal rig for any acoustic recording applications, like cello or contrabass, or even brass instruments.

OD505 - ever wanted to step up from that shitty old dependable Shure SM57 covered in spittle and dents?  That’s what I’m doing with my brand new OD505.   :)  The Open Acoustics Technology really makes this microphone special and it is very rugged .. I’ve already dropped it, done the mic-helicopter thing, smashed it on the floor a few times .. not yet a single dent.  Truly a robust stage microphone that warrants checking out.  I’ll be using this microphone for all my vocals going forward (easier to integrate into my set-up than an OC818, which I’ll go use at Sky Studio any time I need it).

Hi-X65 headphones - I’m a real stickler for headphones, and have been very difficult to budge off my chosen GRADO’s, which are practically welded to my face most of the time -  mostly because of the air and dynamics they deliver in an open-cup format.  Well, I get the same feeling from the Hi-X65’s, albeit with a lot better bass and mid-range performance.  They’re very comfortable, very spacious, and just sound great.  Maybe I’m not ready to give up the GRADO’s at the jam entirely just yet, mostly because they are lighter and feel a bit more comfortable in the jam situation (beerspills, etc.) - but if I hear anyone complain about GRADO bleed-through audio at the next jam, I’ll just settle on the Hi-X65’s going forward.  They’re a suitable replacement and just sound really, really great.  Not as light as I’d like though, and I am yet to get through a 3-hour jam with them permanently mounted, but this is just a matter of acclimating myself away from the GRADO experience.

New stuff?  There are tons of new things on the horizon - the company plans to cover the spectrum for pro audio and music-lover needs, and there are definitely some new things coming in the headphone department, which I won’t say ANYTHING more about, that will cater to some of our needs in very unique ways .. just imagine what sort of features could be packed into a pair of headphones geared for our market - hobbyist/semi-professional studio musicians.

Really fun to be working on products headed for our studios, again.  Now I’m building a small desk studio at work ..

j.
—
Jay Vaughan
ibisum at gmail.com