The t.bone RB 500
Fancy some retro ribbon sounds? Jon Musgrave gets miking with this re-issued affordable design
CONTACT WHO: Thomann WEB: www.tbone.audio KEY FEATURES TYPE: Dynamic TRANSDUCER: Ribbon PICKUP PATTERN: Figure 8 RIBBON: 2” aluminium (strength: 2 µm) MAX. SPL: 148dB FREQ RANGE: 30Hz-18kHz SENSITIVITY: 1mV/PA (0dB=1V/PA @ 1kHz) SIZE: 105 x 235 x 80mm (inc bracket) WEIGHT: 995g (inc cable) PRICING: FetAmp Bundle – £129
German retailer and manufacturer Thomann has recently relaunched its affordable ‘the t.bone’ product line, which includes a large range of microphones, headphones and wireless systems including in-ear monitoring. On the test bench today is the RB 500 ribbon microphone. Inspired by a number of classic designs, this figure 8 mic features a large ribbon capsule housed in an oversized headstock, with gunmetal grey body and traditional u-shaped body mounted bracket. In typical retro style it has a hard wired captive cable, which I’m not a massive fan of, and at about three metres you’ll probably need to extend it anyway. That said, it’s good to see there is a lead clamp attached to the mic mount and this should reduce the strain on the cable entry point. The overall mic finish and build quality seems very good, and there’s also a rather stylish duffel-style pouch, although it’s quite a challenge getting both the mic and its lead back into this.
Ribbon mics often have quite modest output level, and at 1mV/Pa the RB 500 is no exception, needing plenty of preamp gain. This might explain why for an extra £44 you can buy it bundled with t.bone’s FetAmp inline amp. Alas, there’s no quoted noise figure, and listening back to my test recordings revealed some low level background hiss. I don’t think this would be a problem for most applications, but I’d avoid using it for quiet or ambient applications. As you would expect for a figure 8 design, the 90 degree off axis point provides excellent rejection across the freque
