Behringer B5

I needed a mic to use not only for music, but recording vocals, interviews and foley when working remotely. I wanted a mic that has a full 20-20K response, and that I feel happy taking on the road.

Sound:

The sound quality I get from recordings with this mic is excellent. I have used preamps in various zoom devices and also an RME audio interface. I have tried it with speaking, recording objects and also singing. I feel it gives a well rounded and accurate image of what you record. Any issues can be dealt with a little bit of EQ. I am not as experienced as some other engineers, but I found it easy to get good results with this mic.

The omni-directional capsule is very good at capturing overall ambiences, though in my case I expect to use the cardioid capsule most of the time.

I've found a shoot out between this mic and a Neumann on female vocals. In the blind A/B test, most people thought they sounded subtly different, but any perceived difference in quality is not reflected by the price difference. This mic sounds good.

The self-noise has not interfered with recording some fairly quiet sources, even with mobile preamps. It exists, but it has been nothing problematic for me.

Features:

The pad and cut being on the same switch is unfortunate. But there much more expensive mics that do not have any of these features. The cover is nice. The box is ugly, but works. The fact that it comes with two capsules is a big deal for me.

Quality

The pad/cut switch feels janky to me. Perhaps it's the unit, perhaps it's the model as a whole. I think this could have been better. I will try to operate it as little as possible.

The clamp is also plastic, so take care with threads.

The rest of the mic feels good. Screwing and unscrewing the capsule feels solid. Considering the price range, I deduct one start in this category.

Conclusion:

Overall, I am happy with this mic. I needed a quality general purpose mic that I felt comfortable taking on the road, and this mic delivers.

I did buy the mic fairly recently. I will try to update my review if there is a significant change in the future.

Thomann's service and handling was beyond reproach - as usual.

These mikes sound great if you know where to point them. I've used these in live and in studio situations. And they get the job done most of the time.

Why only most of the time? Because you have to be careful with moisture in the air. Mine have gotten noisy a few times because when the capsule spends a lot of time in a damp environment, the microphone's noise floor rises to unusable levels (at least for studio applications). My suggestion is to keep them in a dehumidifier every time you're not using them so you don't get any surprises. Learn from my mistakes. (I only rate this 4 stars because the electronics in the mike could have been a bit better in order for the noise floor not be so grossly amplified).

I bought two of these and found them disappointing - there recording my voice, accordion and concertina, I found there was a quality to the sound that I did not especially like - and slowly over time came to realise my problem was distortion due to placing the mic in cardioid to close to my noisy instrument without using the pad.

I've also come to realise that the B5s' omni capsules work well in spaced pairs, particularly for recording informal groups of singers and sessioning folk musicians. I might even buy another pair some time. I would say that I'm still learning in amateur recording even after all these years.

I have no complaints about the quality.

I've been using it for voice streaming and for some technical recording. It sounds very clean in my opinion. The capsule socket feels very solid, and it's easy to change them.

For speech it works well at any distance. Around 30cm in untreated room for open sound. Very close recording at 1cm with the included windshield for fully isolated dull sound. Just like dynamic microphone. No pops at all. The switchable high pass filter is helping with proximity effect, but is not enough for fully neutral sound at 1cm.

Directivity is definitely there, maybe a bit weaker than on a clone of SM58, but it's hard to compare.

The omnidirectional capsule is great for recording ambient sounds and serviceable for measurements. It is comparable to measurement microphones, but it's larger. That means that B5 is less accurate for measurements, and less noisy and better suitable for recording.

I was able to check that my subwoofer is producing enough sound down to 30hz. Precision was not possible there because of my room anyway.

The omni capsule is made exactly like cardioid one, with all the sound paths on the back of membrane looking exactly the same. Its difference is only solid case, which seals up the membrane on the back. Interesting solution, that was probably cheaper than having another design.