Aputure is shipping their new microphone: "Aputure Deity" (meant to be a competitor

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IronFilm

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Aputure is shipping their new microphone: "Aputure Deity" (meant to be a competitor

The Deity will retail at $369 USD or $429 in a kit with a Rycote Lyre shock handle.

Their launch video from yesterday:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyOTivakluM


Curtis Judd reviewed it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kom1nMM0DrQ


TubeShooterMag also reviewed it:

http://tubeshooter.co.uk/2017/01/01/aputure-unleash-chinese-deity-on-the-world/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POawJfj21g4



Other coverage:

http://www.redsharknews.com/audio/i...im-at-prestigious-rivals-with-new-shotgun-mic

http://thehouseofvideo.com/2017/01/11/Is-the-new-Aputure-Deity-shotgun-mic-a-Rode-killer/
 
That British guy from TubeShooterMag cracks me up. Good to know the new Deity can be used as an ice pick as well as a decent mic.
 
Aputure even matched the 416's sensitivity (around 25mV). The make/model seem to be engraved as well. Most low/mid cost mics are just silk-screened on. Interesting for sure, I'd like to try one out.
 
I swore that I will no longer buy any more gear this year, and just work with what I have. Because you can keep buying, and buying, and there is always some new amazing piece of kit that it would be a crime not to get "at these low prices". Except that it keeps adding up and not only do you end up spending so much that "low prices" no longer apply, but you do more buying than actually using the gear (just speaking - self-critically - for myself here). Therefore one of my "new year resolutions" (which in itself is a dodgy concept) was: no more gear purchases unless absolutely necessary for immediate working situation.

And here we are, not even middle of January, and I'm already wavering. If this Aputure mic is "all that", I may have to break my N-Y resolution. But I'm still hoping - irrationally - that it won't come to that: I hope the quality is "not all that", and it being a fairly new effort by a new company (new to audio, that is), I won't have to be tempted. Of course, it will all come down to testing the mics thoroughly.

That said, here are my criteria:

1) It has to be MUCH better sound quality than the shotguns I already possess

2) It must be able to do be used in circumstances where it is not as convenient to use as the mics I already possess.

Regarding point (1), it must be better SIGNIFICANTLY better sound quality than the AT875r, the AT8035, and the Senn MKE 600 - perhaps rivalling (or exceeding, if possible!) mics such as the NTG3. That's going to be a tough order. As to point (2), it already has a leg up in that it appears to be significantly weather-sealed and sturdy and therefore can be used in some tough circumstances, but it also should exceed my other shotguns in some other respect, such as handling noise, off-axis rejection and the like. I'm reasonably optimistic that the Aputure Deity is not going to be able to do this, and therefore my N-Y resolution is safe.

We shall see.
 
Old Corpse, I resemble that (heh heh heh).

However, I think I will stick to my AT4073A, entirely happy with it. Luckily I do not have clients I have to impress.

You guys ever clean up and put stuff away, and then can't find what you need? I was cleaning up around here, and now I can not find my energy.
 
I'm torn between the lure of low prices and the concern that it is all just a race to the bottom. Like, $1.75 an hour wages bottom.

And we are possibly only shooting ourselves, or our kids, in the foot when we buy this stuff.
 
JPNola said:
I'm torn between the lure of low prices and the concern that it is all just a race to the bottom. Like, $1.75 an hour wages bottom.

And we are possibly only shooting ourselves, or our kids, in the foot when we buy this stuff.
Click to expand...


May not be a problem much longer with possible tariffs, etc. In my experience none of this overseas stuff (with the exception of some Japanese stuff like Sony and Toyota products) ever comes anywhere near US made quality. Some of my Chinese lighting gear wouldn't stand up to daily use like Arri gear would. But it cost a quarter the price, so for my purposes (shooting a feature every two years) it works just fine. This mic probably couldn't be used as a hammer very often but I'll bet they tried to equal the frequency response specs, noise floor, etc. of the 416. Would love to hear an A/B comparison.
 
mainstreetprod said:
May not be a problem much longer with possible tariffs, etc. In my experience none of this overseas stuff (with the exception of some Japanese stuff like Sony and Toyota products) ever comes anywhere near US made quality. Some of my Chinese lighting gear wouldn't stand up to daily use like Arri gear would. But it cost a quarter the price, so for my purposes (shooting a feature every two years) it works just fine. This mic probably couldn't be used as a hammer very often but I'll bet they tried to equal the frequency response specs, noise floor, etc. of the 416. Would love to hear an A/B comparison.
Click to expand...

US made?
 
"Made in America" means, these days, that the label was put on after it came off the boat.

But this is not so new a thing. Back in 1980 I bought a new Ford Pinto. It was made just down the road 4 miles from my home. A few month later my girlfriend bought one too. The only difference, we thought, was hers was white and mine was blue. When we looked at the tag it turned out hers was made in Mexico. Same car, same dealer, same salesman, only hers was an imported car.

Since then the USA has moved more and more industry off shore. If we ever got into another real war we would be in trouble, because we no longer have the manufacturing infrastructure to support it.

Many of the largest companies in the USA are now meerly names that someone has bought up for marketing purposes (RCA for instance). Others are now owned by Asians (JBL for instance). Or euopeans (Chysler for instance).

Since our politics have been taken over by the roundheads, I doubt something with a blasphemous name is long going to be allowed in the American marketplace... (see I am actually on topic)
 
Had to look that one up but I'm not sure I see the connection.
Roundhead was the name given to the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against Charles I of England and his supporters, the Cavaliers or Royalists, who claimed rule by absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings.[1] The goal of the Roundhead party was to give the Parliament supreme control over executive administration.[2]
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To the point though I had said at some time in the past "which is more "american" to buy a foreign built product sold by an american company or an american built product sold be a "foreign" company?"

It actually gets really murky since some electronic components are almost exclusively made in Asia.

And of course american made cars of a certain period had a notoriously bad reputation for quality. The Pinto comes to mind. The defect everyone remembers was just one of a slew that affected that car. The alternator bracket was under spec'ed and broke after about a year of use. The doors sounded "solid", though they had almost no reinforcement, because they had a thick layer of tar on the inside (which melted and ran out the bottom if you lived in a hot climate).

The better guide is what the companies reputation for quality and standing behind their product is. That does not seem to be very border specific.
Which is why I lean toward Tascam over Zoom, one has a good track record and one doesn't. Lectrosonics, SD, NAGRA, etc. partly get the prices they do because of great reputations for reliability and customer service.

Where you get great bargains is companies who either have great quality and support but haven't been around long enough to have a solid track record or companies who have had a spotty rep and are trying to build a better reputation. My gut says Zoom is in this last category with the F series. The first category is research, and luck. SD was in that group a bunch of years ago. As pricey as the MixPre seems to some today, when it came in it was about 1/2 the price of any of it's competitors.
 
Cromwell and the Roundheads also stood for religious purity (Church of England style). To put it in my own words, they where religious bigots. Hence my using it in reference to a microphone called "Deity".

Ah, yes, the terrible exploding Pintos! The story was front page headlines, the results of the lawsuit were 2 inchs on page 26. The court found that the particular car was an unmaintained piece of junk, stalled in the expressway in the middle of the night with no lights, and a piece of rag stuff in the gasoline filler pipe as a gas cap. It was rear ended by a car going 70mph. The court found Ford Motor Company not at fault.

That said, the 79-80 Pintos were basically a Thunderbird or Mustang with different sheet metal, and had no relationship to the previous model. But the damage was done to their reputation. The crap about the Corvair was pretty much the same kind of lies. I consider the 1980 Pinto, I owned for 6 years, one the better cars I have had. I replaced it with a Diesel Escort, the worst car, with the best drive train, I ever had.

There is a guy over on AudioKarma whose tagline is "If you don't read the news you are uninformed. If you do read the news you are misinformed". Maybe in these days you should replace "read" with "follow", but other than that I can not find any fault with it.
 
Noiz2 said:
The better guide is what the companies reputation for quality and standing behind their product is. That does not seem to be very border specific.
Click to expand...

Sorry to say, these days there simply is no guide, period. Companies get bought, merged, subsumed, taken over, ownership, management and workforce changes and what comes out the other end frequently has no resemblance to what came before. Many a time I've bought tools, or gear from what I remembered were solid companies with long track records, and then when the product transpired to be of shockingly low quality, I'm told by old hands "oh, the new management decided to outsource production to China" or whatever, in any case, the new stuff - that looks just like the old solid stuff - is no longer the same. RIP.

Unless you know that the company is still the same in all respects, ownership, management, workforce and so forth, you simply cannot rely on brand names. It seems like such a no-brainer - the most precious thing a company has is the brand name reputation. If you ruin the brand, you ruin your company. Yet, so many thoughlessly pursue short-term profit at the expense of the future, eating their seed. Sometimes, to be fair, they feel they have no choice - or they'd be priced out of the market altogther, if everyone in their industry outsources to China, and you don't but as a result you are 300% more expensive, unless your customers reward you by continued purchases, you either join the rest of the industry, or you perish. And too often the customer doesn't care, or not enough customers care to make the business a going concern.

These days, brand names are just bought and sold - precisely for their reputation, or frequently just for name recognition and marketing. After all, how many people would buy from Xiating company versus from Polariod? So Xiating (made up name) buys the Polaroid name and markets their product - often having zero to do with any product Polaroid ever made in its history - and sells it under the "Polaroid" name. From my understanding the Polaroid name has changed hands several times - I've seen Polaroid lights, tripods, clamps and various random doo-dahs - and now they've gone back to marketing instant cameras.

Brand names was a way to cut through the noise and pick products without having to do the tedious research (or impractical, or too expensive research). It was a shortcut to pick one product over another. But brand names are bought and sold like anything else, and no longer can be relied upon as a shortcut to consumer research and choice. Unless you actually do the research, there are "tells" any more that depend upon the brand name. So people rely upon customer feedback - and it better be *recent* feedback... which is why it's so popular for companies and sellers to astroturf opinion and message boards.

We'll know what we have in our hands with Aputure Deity, once we have the mics in our hands.

EDIT: I did not intend this post to be political (doesn't seem to me so - just discussing how to pick products) - but if it goes over the guidelines, mods please delete!
 
and to add pretty much anything with an Apple on it is made well away from Europe or the USA.

I have some great mic's made in china etc and they allow me to experiment and do things far more easily than in the old days of having to save up for an SM58 etc.

15 years ago I would never have been able to afford my video camera (panasonic HPX301 P2) my final cut pro edit suite or my Digidesign 002 dubbing set-up both running on an Apple Mac Pro with Blackmagic video card.

I use the 416 at work but have never been able to justify buying one for myself so have settled on the AT875r mics which I find fine for what I do but I would consider one of these as it seems to sound good and it excellent value.

I could never justify a Neuman U87 either but to my ears with my mid range kit the Rode NT2000 does a fine job just the same.

I also just bought a Loar jazz guitar made in china and OK it ain't a Gibson but for less than $200 it does a good enough job for my needs, I used to own tens of thousands of dollars worth of USA PRS guitars too but found I never played them and sold the lot and my Gibson CS-339 sits in its case whilst the China made Epiphone casino coupe gets plenty of use and plays just as well.

You pays yer money etc.
 
Maybe the the bottom line should be "do your research". Buying anything because of something other than that is a "political" stance. Which is fine but it's not what the topic is about.

BTW I owned a Pinto and the issues I talked about were not ones I read about but ones I dealt with. Easily worst car I ever owned. MG Midget was also a bit of a piece of junk but what a blast to drive! Best car was a SAAB station wagon that (ironically) had a fantastic Ford Taurus V4 engine. Apparently they were small farm tractor engines that SAAB bought up. That sucker was solid as a rock, still sorry I let it go.
 
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