I've used it for the last 7 years, and I just now remebered to review it. What can I say other than everything that's been said? It's the mic for everything, if you position it well, and use a quality preamp, it's going to shine.
My personal observations for this model are:
1. It doesn't suit every voice, especially not the muffled and boxy ones, because the low-mids have a tendency to be more present with this mic.
2. Those beefy low-mids are an advantage when dealing with thin sounding instruments, like every kind of high-pitched string, or high register flutes etc.
3. It helped me train my ears, and understand much more about quality sound. I upgraded from a Rode NT-2A, and my first impression was that it lacks definition or spark. Quickly understood that it doesn't have that high-bump that many mics do, it's much more linear, and once I figured the eq curves needed, everything began to reveal in a greater quality, and a silky top-end.
4. Low-end it's gorgeous, I tracked an upright bass, and it handled it so well, so clean, no distortion no artefacts, Just pure instrument. Cello, tenor sax, skin hand-drums, everything sounds like fat butter :)) of course, you must play with mic-positioning first.
Conclusion: In the last 7 years I had the budget to upgrade, and I thought of it for a while. But after good analysis, I came to the conclusion that there's no actual sound that I couldn't achieve easily with the U87 Ai. And any upgrade would be just a new toy, just a gear addictive satisfaction. So that's my honest review of this workhorse. You can't mess up with it. Good musical performance translates perfectly, if the recording engineer knows his job.
