Gefell UM70

Those appear to be mid-90's vintage. The best of the best IMO. Congrats.

The other ones Ian had were transformerless (UMT), which confirms that there were some weird things and crossovers happening in the mid 90’s. Based off of things I’ve heard and read from other people, it seems like Gefell was making them UM/T-70s with and without transformers for a period of time, at the same time.

At the time they made both, only made more complicated by the fact that there were silver and & Black plus lower noise “s” versions. You had to have a cheat sheet it was a pain in the ass.

The podcastage guy has a great review on the transformerless. I'd love to hear the transformer version.

I've adored my UMT71S for a year now. Even though I chose it originally over the U87ai, and I think it is a better rounded mic than it (there's nothing it won't record beautifully), I still crave that signature U87ai top end crispness. Looks like I'll have to add the U87ai to my collection, much to my wallet's dismay.

UM70's or M71S's (card only) are my go-to OH mics!!  All I wish for in my room is just a little more "top" which I can get easily with the SBmk2 AIR EQ or the Miad's or Avalon's.....

I very much prefer the UM70 with transformer over transformerless version where the limitations of the M7 are much more obvious. That is, the M7 to my taste is too much mid forward with quite shy low end response. The transformer coupled circuits (ideally, the tube) do help with fuller sonics at the bottom end.

I don't believe the original UM70 was the best M7 based mic. For some unexplainable reason they put into the circuit made in house chip, while the simple KM84 style of the circuit there with its single jFet driving stock transformer would be a simple, elegant, and sonically superior solution. Also, the original version made in GDR was full of poor quality Soviet parts with very broad tolerances. We even made a mod bypassing that chip, and replacing some critical parts in signal path, which considerably lowered noise and greatly improved sonics. Mike Jasper of Tape Op was extremely enthusiastic about this mod.

I like the unique idiocrancies (problems) with the UM70's. . I think that may be why they are so beloved.

Here we run some M71s cardioid only Gefells. Bought around 1994 or so when the mics were imported by Gotham Audio and sold as a "Glasnost" microphone. These have the transformers and sound fabulous.

Later I added some modern (2015) Gefell M71s mics--by this time it is a transformerless mic. Still quite good but not nearly as good a sound as the earlier transformer version.

Gefell--a unique and very high quality mikrophon house.

I think they are beloved rather despite their idiosyncrasies

For everyone that has this style of box from Gefell: Have you had issues with the foam degrading? I was planning on getting some sort of nice case to house these two mics because I assumed the foam was going to be brittle and breaking down. I wasn't sure how much use these mic had gotten the last 10 years and was expecting the foam to be a mess. Surprisingly, it seem absolutely fine so I'll probably just keep them in their boxes. Gefell must have used some sort of asbestos infused uranium coating on this stuff  . Shouldn't this type of foam should have been toast by now?

Maybe.  Jim Williams told me to either sell mine to unsuspecting Ebay buyers or toss em in the trash when they developed an RFI problem that was easily solved by disconnecting pin 1 and tying it to the shield of the XLR shell.  How shortsighted that was.  Some of my most beloved mics.  Saved from the trash can at $0.00 cost and a half hour of my time.  When "the experts" told me they were junk.