One of our distributors – Ivo Sedlacek (Czech Republic) made a great job for all of us by recording some samples with very respectable microphones and inserting them into Gearslutz as blind samples, so everybody could make objective judgment about the sound of microphones. Well, first thanks to all who made comments about samples and told their thoughts about the sound & microphones. I think it was very interesting discussion with surprising results…

Here are these samples:

Song 1:

1

2

3

4

5

Song 2:

A

B

C

In this shootout songs was recorded with different mics: Neumann U47, M49, Manley Gold, Horch RM2, JZ V47 and BH-2. Everybody could say their opinion and guess which mic is which. Of course there were different preferences but mainly the struggle was between Horch RM2 and JZ V47. Well, just think about what is the price difference for these two mics!?!?

It was nice to see that many preferred #3 in Song 1 which exactly was Vintage V47 mic! Especially it was funny when many said that #3 has the Neumann u47 vintage tone!   I just want to remind that V47 is not a tube mic but the quality of sound is at least in the same level as old & respectable tube mics. Many before hearing the mics doubt us for this approach that we are not using a tube but transistor.

In general I can say about this shootout that this still approves that people are having various tastes of sound and that people nowadays used to be very detailed when they evaluate the sound. Plus, this also shows that it is absolutely possible nowadays to compete with big name microphone brands and that the best way how to evaluate the mics is blind tests because it seems that many today are still much focussed only on brand named gears and are very reserved against new things!

Finally I want to offer also the opinion of our friend Ivo from Czech Republic who made this shootout: „Although many people joined our experiment and shared their opinions about the sound & mics, next time such a test would have to be conducted in more detailed way. This shootout show that people has various tastes and regarding JZ V47 mic opinions were quite consistent – it was often described as pleasant and “right”. Also the price for the V47 seems to be very good!”

Here are also some other phrases about V47 mic from Gearslutz shootout:

„The most pleasingly present. Brings the vocal to the forefront in just the right way.”
„I think A was the most balanced overall.”

„Is not bad at all. More vintage. Neumann vibe Prolly the u47. I love it for this song and singer!”

„Just sat in the mix well. A very sweet and intimate sound. It just sounds ‘right’”
„The #3 has the Neumann u47 vintage tone.”

„It’s funny how a lot of you guys said that the JZ47 was the one with the Neumann U47 tone.”

Read full discussion in Gearslutz: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/gear-shoot-outs-sound-file-comparisons-audio-tests/465589-jz-v47-vs-real-u47-also-m49-manley-gold-horch-bh2.html

No, it shouldn’t. Absolutely not! And as it seems to become the main topic of the day regarding our new Vintage microphone line, we found it necessary to argue this issue.

First of all the capsule of V47 is made close to original U47 capsule but it has different design and sound improvements. V47 has no tube and no transformer!!! By having available higher quality transistors and circuit schemes than it was in the middle of 20^th century we have been achieving better sound results with transistor than tube mics. This is the confidence of our designer Mr. Juris Zarins.

Although the capsule is made close to the standards of legendary U47 capsule, still it has some significant differences which also reflect on sound. It has the same size of capsule but there are different overlay parameters. Plus I want to emphasis Golden drops technology which refreshes this old & respectable 47 sound. You might think now that there is no point to call it Vintage mic of 47 sound because it does not give the same sound?!? – Wrong again! Together with our improvements the mic still produces the same range of U47 sound, only it has our own added value by our improvements which give new & renewed view of this legendary sound. Plus what is maybe tiny thing but also essential for sound, is microphone screen which in JZ Vintage series is built in two but in original U47 in three layers. That gives our V47 quicker sound flow and more airy taste of sound.

We have never tried to copy someone; our business vision always was to offer new solutions and our own point of view to the most demanded products in recording industry. We are learning from history and then we are trying to set up new challenge & make better recording for everyone. We appreciate everybody who is open to try out old good things in new quality!

Screen of U47 and JZ V47 (right)

What were the most interesting things to see at NAMM? What were the best events at the show? Many interesting reports and plenty of news from the show were fulfilled in all audio internet pages & magazines.

Now when the show is over and it’s been time to search for feedback & comments all over the internet about the show, I find it interesting to make a short review of JZ Vintage coverage in mass media. What was journalists’ impression of new microphone line, how they reviewed new mic and what they said about it?

I will start first with Mix magazine. Kevin Becka made a Top of Best Ten Gear Picks from NAMM and nominated JZ Vintage mic V47 in 6th place! See all Top here in Mix Blog.

Also Barry Rudolph who made a top of recording products from Winter NAMM 2010 for Pro Sound Web listed V47 mic on the top from all new microphones at the show! Check it here in Pro Sound Web!

There were plenty of articles in internet and magazines, that JZ is launching new microphone series with the first mic in it – V47. Well, they were not any Tops or special reports like I mentioned before, but anyway it is always nice to see your published news online or in magazines. I think that means that you have produced something, that is interesting for their audience. You can read some topics from Harmony Central, Pro Sound Web, SonicState.com or Pro Audio Review.

Finally it is also great to find your products reviewed in Youtube or discussed in Gearslutz!

Start watching from time 1:22

Thank you ALL for letting to know whole world about us!

The NAMM Show was, is and will be the biggest music trade show in the world where to present your product and meet many potential customers. Also it is the best place to see what is going on in music industry and find out people opinion, impression and thoughts about your made stuff. So, this NAMM it was time to show up our new microphone line JZ Vintage and introduce public with V47 mic. What was visitors’ impression? How they react on recreation of vintage sound? Here is my experience…

JZ booth at NAMM 2010

Well, the first and really good thing is that we are from Latvia and that all manufacturing process is taking place exactly here. That makes people more confident about product quality and explains why we can provide five year warranty. Also after two years in business JZ brand recognition has been increasing rapidly and together with well known & familiar sound and idea of microphone (I’m talking about V47 with legendary U47 sound) people are more seriously considering purchase without testing the mic out. Especially everyone was breaking into the smile afterward I told what the price of V47 is.

Together with Sylvia Massy and V47 mic

What I also noticed at the show was that people preferred our businesswise how we were presenting new Vintage microphone line. Instead of formal approach, we had nice atmosphere in booth with Terminator holding Vintage mic in hand on poster and that was the thing which made everybody to smile again and felt comfortable staying at our booth. Also journalists enjoyed visits at our booth with not only getting full information about mics but also they could try out in Latvia made drink – Latvian Balsam. Of course, that was not the main reason, but it was nice to hear from many that the Vintage mic is one of the top news at this show. The official NAMM magazine Upbeat Daily put Vintage series under heading Show stoppers (15.01.) and Market Focus (16.01.). For me the biggest surprise at the show was Polytune made by TC Electronic which for me as guitarist seemed very stunning item.

As usually in all shows we are offering visitors to try out the mics

In general I am very pleased with people’s attitude to new series and new mic. All we have to do now is to offer you all demo tryout to convince that all I am talking about before is absolutely truth. We have made a good quality mic with legendary vintage sound, now it is your time to evaluate it and start using it for recording.

* Here is also video from JZ booth about new JZ Vintage mic V47: http://emusician.com/ms/namm/video/namm_2010_jz_microphones_vintage_series/

After more than 20 hours flight finally we have arrived in LA. Now all work for booth is done and everything is ready for the show. Remember that exactly this NAMM Show is historical moment for our company because during this show we are launching new JZ Vintage series mics, starting with respectable V47.

Visit us at booth #6946 in hall A and take a look at new JZ Vintage masterpiece. We will show it to you, tell you about it and also you will have a chance to try it out by hearing it by yourself at the show.

See you at NAMM!

Everyone knows how people are talking about old, good sounding vintage mics which were built in the middle of 20th century. Still many today are impressed about the way how they were built and what sound they gave out.

When I made JZ Vintage mic I thought very much about internal design. How to build it – as vacuum tube or transistor mic? I know that almost all vintage mics are tube mics but for JZ Vintage series I decided to keep on working with transistor technologies as I did before with all JZ products including my favourite Black Hole series.

The reasons why I chose to built this microphone with Class A discrete electronics is my many years experience in developing exactly transistor circuit’s technology for microphones. As in the last 20 years electronics has been developing rapidly – there was a good chance to improve also technology of transistors (soundvise too) and the sounding of mics where transistor packed schematics were used got better with every day. By higher quality transistors and circuit schemes than it was available in the middle of 20^th century it is now easier to achieve better sound results with transistor than tube mics.

As well it is almost not possible to find good tubes nowadays. Everyone who finds bunch of good tubes makes a lot of press from it. But basically it is something like discovering fossils of dead dinosaurs. And what to do if tube from your 7k USD mic goes dead? Buy another mic?!? I do not believe that tubes will get their second up-wave. Do you?

All transistors and circuits with discrete elements I have been using in my mics are carefully handcrafted and tested in my factory in Latvia reaching much lower self noise level than tube has. Transistors together with improved (Golden drops technology) capsules can provide also better sounding mics. Besides transistors has also longer usage time than tube, so that is also reason why I always provide 5 year warranty for all JZ mics.

As one of the lucky guys who had a chance to hear The JZ Vintage prototype during this shootout, I was very nice surprised in every way you can imagine. This was the first time ever for this microphone sounding in public. So, it made an extra curiosity for us all engineers to know how it would stand the shootout.

My first impression started with the design, my eyes kept looking at it. It had an attractive and judiciously look. When you hold this mike in your hand you immediately feel the passion of how it has been built. It‘s difficult to explain, maybe it’s because of the flask shape which reminds me of flask bottles where you keep your whiskey. You have to experience it. Anyway it does not mean this is a good mike, but before hearing it the vintage mood was already there.

Jan Morel from Morel Muziek (from right) together with JZ Marketing and PR manager Andis Blinds

Due lack of time because all tests with other mikes during this shootout, we only got the chance to listen to the JZ Vintage V47. They tested it with a classical female voice. All people were very impressed by the quality of the recording. The singer herself: “I never heard my own voice like this before, it’s amazing “. Sounds warm, detailed and clear with a distinct emphasis in its upper-midrange frequency response. It really brought us back the 47 sound that we all know and still love so much today.

The JZ Vintage mic would be a real high end mike for professionals. It is reliable and newly build but still with a vintage sound and look . To have different capsules in the near future is really a great idea. So if JZ really makes it through, it will be a great success to all of us. Another interesting point of this JZ Vintage mike is: its really affordable, it will be just around € 1.200,- unbelievable but true. From my opinion that’s a very competitive price in comparison with other high quality vintage mikes.

The JZ people are right in time because today we are running out from the old vintage mikes. All my compliments to JZ for giving us those kind of quality instruments.

Cat Tipex disturbs historical moment

It was during the shootout of JZ mics in the Netherlands. In a small town called Veenendaal the professional microphone test was organized and we went there to educate people about our production and introduce with new mics. It was very special shootout because we tried out not only the new BH-1s and BT-301 mics but also it was the first setup of JZ Vintage prototype abroad. We were very curious to know how the mic will sound there besides it was a little bit risky situation because this mic was never tried out before somewhere else in audience.

The atmosphere seemed very positive because almost everybody has fumbled with the Vintage prototype and was curios to hear it. But we left it to desert. Only after all other JZ microphone tests finally we put V47 on vocals and it agreeably surprised all visitors although somebody had some concern about its sounding at the beginning. We got warm, detailed and opened air sound and it seemed that the new V47 proved itself very well for the first time. Immediately we had new topics to discuss – when JZ Vintage mics will be available, what will be the pricing, what other sounds this series will have and what the main sales points for this mic are.

There were also few funny situations. The one I remember the most was when I tried to film the historical moment of singer first time singing in JZ Vintage mic. I thought that it would be incredible material in JZ history to take a movie of the first tryout ever of new Vintage mic. Good idea! But not always good ideas come true…

Next to me was table with food and when I was filming the recording I noticed that a cat which lives in studio ,called Tipex, was trying to get some food from the table and my perfect idea to memorialize the first setup of mic failed. I stopped filming the singer and I did my best to keep the cat off from the table. At least I have funny video now…:)

Innovations. Quality standards. Competitiveness.

When there are plenty of microphones in the marketplace today it is very important to choose the right model for new product launching. It’s all even more complicated now because there is soft economy around and people are very choosey in pro audio industry. If somebody has decided to purchase for his home studio microphone or guitar (I do also distribution of guitars in Latvia), it is usually huge work of research, evolution and comparison until customer comes ahead to purchase. I am not speaking about cheap Chinese stuff but about respectable and high quality gears.

The main values for JZ Microphones are innovations, high quality and challenge by which we mean competitiveness. The new JZ Vintage series will include all of these mentioned points, so I believe that this mic will be well prepared for competition that after a long term decision high end user could choose exactly this mics for his so expected purchase.

Innovations

The main things in JZ Vintage mic about innovations are design and its functionality. First of all this microphone has built in shock-mounting system. Plus the mic has swivel mount which works perfect as a positing option for any recording application. It will be very comfortable and easy to reach without any screwing. There will be no need to think extra about positing problems, because we have done it instead of you. Third, as well as Black Hole mic, also JZ Vintage has hole in its body which works well on avoiding negative reverberations. And finally the mic has improved electronics according to standards of nowadays market without losing the fell of vintage sound.

Quality standards

What is the most important thing about mics? – It’s sound! And the main thing about sound is capsule. JZ Vintage will have the best vintage sound in honour of respectively U67, U47 or C-12 . The mic has double capsule which is created using JZ patented Golden drops sputtering technology to achieve the best possible frequency response. It’s actually also innovation issue but as we have been using this technology before I put it under quality issue. Everything starting from capsule till small screws will be made in Latvia, so we are controlling 100% of the quality of our production. Therefore comes 5 year warranty.

Competitiveness

We all know how expensive vintage mics are therefore we are looking now for the best solutions and working on providing good and competitive price. For us of course the main value is quality but in these days situation I do understand also how important the price is.

There are always two things you should think about when you are thinking about new mics – design and functioning. The first part is the easiest because there are no borders when you are thinking about design; you can draw whatever you want for microphone, but the most difficult issue is to combine it with functioning and make it well sounding.

This time it was very fortunate when I came up with JZ Vintage mics, because I got immediately ideas for both things and they worked together great. Just got the right idea in the right time…

Here is my story.

It was early spring in 2009 and I was in forest for hunting. It was pretty cold and I got some drink with me to get me warmer and dwell some time while waiting for animals. I got a really good cognac with me – the Martel which I use to drink for my last twenty years and which was the best thing for that moment I could ever wish to have with me. Besides the cognac was filled in my new flask bottle which I got as Christmas present from my wife.

I took a spot of drink and I recognized that my good old cognac tastes very good in my new flask and immediately I got a question in my mind about microphones: why there is no new mic with old and well known sound? We have old and good sounding mics like U67, U47, C12, Ela M 251 but they are extremely expensive and rare. So, I thought why I shouldn’t I make a new and nice looking mic with respectable sounds by using my own technologies!?!? In that moment I got also my flask bottle in my hand and I thought that the flask shape could be a nice way for my new designed mic. There was no hunting in my mind anymore! I just got so many ideas how the new mic could look and how could I make my flask sound.

Next Monday I started to talk with my colleagues about this idea and everybody liked it. I made some draws, some visualizing and I needed only few weeks to make mic alive and give it the first sound! Just got the right idea in the right time…