Mark Harmer
November 11, 2008

Rating: 10/10

I own quite a few Neumann and AKG mikes, and bought one of the NT1a mics out of curiosity, because I couldn\\\'t believe the universally positive things people were saying about them. Well, to cut a long story short, I was so impressed I immediately bought three more! They are utterly superb for voices - I would use nothing else. They don\\\'t have the ever so slightly hard edge that the AKGs and Neumanns have, and they work flawlessly.

I\\\'ve used them now on three CD projects - ranging from close-miked vocals, an ancient instrument from Iraq and also a harp recording in a large church, and they have excelled at all of these.

They are fantastically low noise - a huge plus if you are using quiet sound sources. I believe they have the lowest self-noise of any commercial microphone. I\\\'ve even used them as stereo pairs for more distant recording techniques, and again they work really well - although you will probably want to use mics with variable polar diagrams for that sort of work.

They are quite sensitive to bass thumps and wind, so if you use these in a studio, I would say you must use one of those circular mic windshields which you fix between the mic and the vocalist. Also the shockmounts are excellent and totally necessary - as any vibration will be picked up.

The shockmounts can be a bit difficult to position and occasionally come apart - not what you want in a busy session. One other curiosity is that the waveform is quite asymmetrical. I don\\\'t know why this is but I suspect there\\\'s some sort of ac or dc offset. It doesn\\\'t affect the sound one iota but I thought I\\\'d mention it.

These are superb mics at any price, but at these prices they are crazy value. If you want to record vocals, don\\\'t buy anything else unless you have money to burn.

August 19, 2008

Rating: 9/10

People always tell me that, Kris if you want a professional sound without any boundaries then you ought to invest money into a Neumann Microphone. Yes, fair enough Neumann have become the industry standard but so has Rode.

Just because you paid a smaller price for a Rode that doesn\'t mean you can\'t do the same as you could with the Neumann.

If you want a high quality and professional microphone without breaking the band then I absolutely recommend this excellent microphone from Rode.

Simply put - The Rode NT1-A is quality without compromise

Eoin Hinchy
July 3, 2007

Rating: 9/10

This mic is outstanding. For the price you will not believe the quality. It's also amazingly sensitive and creates little to no noise. Shockmount is nice and solid too.
If I ever broke my NT1A I definitely buy another one. Can't recommend highly enough.