Electro-Voice Co7

In keeping with my particular obsession with cheap audio gear, I would naturally come around to reviewing more and more cheap microphones to the extremely budget minded. This round brings me to the Electro Voice Cobalt Co7, a microphone that is designed specifically for "female and male jazz and rock vocals." I am not quite sure why Electro Voice would pigeon hole this microphone into those two simultaneously specific and vague realms, but hey, I am not working for their marketing department, am I? Electro Voice claims that these are made to the same high and meticulous standards at the NYD microphones that all have those yellow accents. (You know which types I am speaking of here, right?) So is it really as good as those microphones that I or anyone else cannot seem to get quite enough of? Let us see! The Co7 has a frequency response that starts down at an entirely typical 50 Hz, but instead of stopping at the "required" 15,000 Hz, it runs all the way up to a whopping 18,000 Hz? Why do I say whopping? Because this microphone is so gosh darn cheap! It is typically cardioid, although that is not a typical thing for Electro Voice to do as a company now, considering the fact that most of their microphones are now made super or hyper cardioid. And, of course, it is a dynamic. To be perfectly honest, I cannot decide whether the body looks professional or toylike. I think that boils down to personal preference.

OVERALL OPINION

I have found these mics to be stubbornly directional! This is actually quite a welcome change to those accidentally loose patterns that budget mics always seem to tend having. This mic also seems to have a quite pronounced proximity effect, although it is not terrible. Another terrible thing is that like the other Cobalt mics, handling noise is bad, so careful. Otherwise, it has a clear tone that you would like to try to sure, just because you want to prove me wrong and say that it is not clear for this cheap! Give it a shot!