ART AR5 Active Ribbon Microphone

Tried this Mic as an active ribbon Mic. With the internal 48vdc preamp, it has ample output given it's a ribbon type.Tried it out and found it to be a VERY nice sounding mic I plan to use for M/S recording setup.It's no Royer, but it's a very smooth, not too dark sounding mic with good high end.At a buck and a half, it's a bargain I feel! Great for acoustic guitar recording.Comes with ample shock mount. Prox effect is not too much but gives a warm boost to lower voices at closer range.

Clearly this is trying to at least look like an active Royer ribbon a’la R122. Does it even stand a chance? It seems no one serious (sorry!) has ever reviewed this mic in its years of existence, and silence is usually a bad sign. So I had to try it out.The good news is this does sound pretty OK in its limited range. The most severe limit is headroom...it doesn’t have enough to crank a guitar amp and live. The internal preamp that you send phantom power into will clip out uglily at something like 120dBA (I just estimated that by moaning straight into the capsule)...especially it seems in the all-important midrange. This is fine perhaps for an amp with an attenuator but even then a bit hazardous to rely on not crunching in a way nature never intended.There is also hiss. Hiss? Yes. Lots of hiss in that internal preamp. And there is the extended proximity effect ribbons are known for, but not in such a bad way, that preamp does a reasonable job taming it. Thinking of a Cloudlifter, say? Nope: this mic has a built-in, crummy cloudlifter, and your cloudlifter will only lift the phantom power it needs to generate much tone.A little tone does get out passively without phantom power. And active ribbons seem hazardous as you’re thinking ribbons will blow if you apply phantom power. I don’t risk testing it, but apparently that is a myth these days, only old ribbon mics were susceptible to that and most of those were converted to safety. So who knows if this mic tricks you into accidentally sending phantom into your other ribbons. At least don’t send phantom into a TRS patchbay and yank the cables with it on!So there’s low dynamic range with hiss and internal clipping, and a bass-heavy response anyway that needs a decent Pultec to correct (try cut 4@100, boost 5@10K with 7 width, and cut 3@10K). Is there any reason left to buy this mic?Uh, well...real Royers start at 3x this price, and an R121 nearly 10x. And an R121 is justifiably famous on guitar cab. And they never go on sale. If you want a bit of that flavor, though nowhere near as pretty, and you’re willing to keep your amp level fairly low, this gets you quite a bit of the way there for cheap. I haven’t tested all the competitors, but I imagine this slots in at about where its price suggests it should. If I’m wrong about that, buy the better value.

I just received the ART AR5 recently, and plugged it in (Digi 003) last night. It works really well on a guitar cabinet. Nice tone. I am happy.Looking forward to using this a lot on guitar cabs.

just got this mic delivered. very disappointed. mic has loads of pops when recording that sound like some sort of electrical charge is being blasted through it, trust me, i know what i'm doing and i've got loads of great mics including a u87 and akg 535.....this mic was totally broken. should never have left the factory. the shockmount was so tight you could hardly fit the mic in it. so tight that it removed the stick on serial numbers from the mic after putting the mic in the mount. the fancy metal carry case the mic came in had 3 dents in it. how is that even possible? the whole thing was in it's own box and all inside an amazon box. i don't get it. doesn't anyone check anything before they ship it out from the factory? not blaming amazon...this is all on ART. folks get it together. this is unacceptable.

Extremely poor quality control and nonexistant customer support from ArtProAudio.The unit I received was not properly grounded to the microphone body. This results in rf interference from the AC current from the preamp. My other mics do not do this.I contacted support at artproaudio and crickets!I found a way around the problem by modifying the female end of my xlr cable to make a connection from pin 1 ground to the metal outside of the female xlr connector.This completed the circuit and silenced the ac hum. I hope this will help someone.

This was way better than I expected. I have to do very little eq on guitars with this. Everything is hugged with ribbony warmness.

Amazing mic, really works well for lead trumpet high spl sound sources. Haven’t been even using eq with this mic just a little verb. Very pleased for the money. I did get a defective one but amazon makes returns very simple and the second mic was perfect. The mount is cheaply made but works. The case is nice. But really the value is in the sound I am able to get with this mic and logic. It is comparable to more expensive ribbon options.

The good/the bad... Most natural sounding mic I have ever heard for the money/ unfortunately the 25db noise rating seems unbearable on quieter instruments (guitar, vocals, etc.). I would compare the hiss to mid level audio tape hiss. Put this mic on a louder source (drums, horns, Amps, etc) okay. Unfortunately I was hoping to use it for a natural and moderately clean acoustic guitar recording.