LLOYDWT

I've got a few of these. They're great as a universal clip — https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/Universal-Quick-Release-Mic-Clip-by-Gear4music/1OJH

Fair points, but with the volume of items that are being sold, allocating staff to the appraisal of questionable listings seems somewhat sensible. You don't have to be Rupert Neve to be able to figure out half of these things aren't legitimate. And, if a seller has conceded that an item is fake and offered a full refund, why allow that seller to continue selling the same items without some kind of intervention and assessment? Perhaps the threat of some actual consequences would deter the less hardy fraudsters.

Some of the nicest, and rarest, gear I've bought has been from eBay; it does feel like it's gettiing worse, and eBay as a company definitely isn't pulling its weight in dealing with the issues. But there are still some brilliant sellers on there and I'm going to continue spending too much time and too much money navigating the listings. What really irks me, though, is that this guy has sold at least 4 other fake mics, and eBay, despite being made aware by me, is going to do sweet F.A. about it. He sold one of them after I reported him for selling fakes (he reduced his asking price by £70 to encourage a quick sale!).

No, at least not to my ears; but if you can pick one up for <£250, then I'd say it's worth it. I have one just as a different flavour to my KSM8. If I'm being honest, I can get a serviceable sound I'm happy with from near any dynamic mic, but the KMS150 sounds excellent effortlessly, and the less effort I have to put in, generally the happier I am.

I navigated eBays, incredibly unhelpful, contact page and managed to get through to their first-line support, who insisted I send the counterfeit goods back to the seller. I asked to speak to a more senior member of staff and was on hold for 40 minutes. I was told they would "initiate a callback" and I'd hear from a second-line support agent within 72 hours, which I declined. I advised them that I will make Trading Standards aware of eBay's instruction to me to return the counterfeit goods to the seller. The first-line support agent confirmed eBay would do nothing regarding the defrauded buyers who've unknowingly bought a fake, though they say they'll remove any future listings of this item from this sellers account. I'll send the goods back to the seller, await my refund and then report them to trading standards and the police. I'll also try and shame eBay on social media to do the right thing re. the already defrauded individuals.

I filled in an "Item not as described" report, and it went to the seller for a refund. There was and is no option to involve eBay unless the seller doesn't respond or refund me.

I buy and sell a lot from eBay, Reverb and Facebook Marketplace; I often take advantage of people's unwillingness to ship larger items, to get hold of some fun toys for small prices. I've recently sold a load of Shure wireless mics I pulled from a conference room in Mayfair, and have been using the proceeds to upgrade my PA and practice room equipment. I won an auction for a Neumann KMS105 for £205 last week. This might seem like a red-flag price for this mic, but I'm pretty sure I paid somewhere in that ball park for the real one I already own. The seller had 100% feedback, is U.K. based, had a "legitimate" reason for selling unused mics and even had recent positive feedback for selling an identical one. I paid via PayPal over eBay, so had no worries regardless. The mic arrived this lunchtime. It's garbage. The box looks legit; my first KMS105 was old and didn't come with a box, so I can't comment on the accuracy, but it looks and feels as I'd expect. The wrap case is identical to my real one, and the weight felt about right, so far so good. Next, the mic holder; this is obviously a fake. Real Neumann clamps have the logo debossed; this fake has the word NEUMANN (incorrect font) printed on it. The adjustable thread isn't real; it cannot be removed. The bolt on the hinge is cheap, the wrong colour and ill fitting. Now the mic. It's a pretty good aesthetic match for the real deal. The Neumann logo is present, in the right place, and the colours match; though it's rough around the edges and doesn't sit perfectly within the diamond. The weight of the mic is slightly off; it's not light but it doesn't have the heft of the real thing. The external and inner shield look identical to the real deal. The underside of the XLR PCB says "KMS105" at a jaunty angle rather than "Made in Germany" inline with the pins. Unscrewing the shield isn't a fun experience, the threading is dirty and poorly applied; the capsule is cheap and completely unlike a Neumann one. Even before unscrewing the main PCB, I can see it's nothing like the real deal. The Neumann capsule is directly attached to the PCB, this fake is loose with a 1" long grey wire connecting the two with a sloppy solder job on the PCB. The Neumann PCBs are green with gold Neumann logo and writing. The KMS105 has 2 capacitors and very tidy gold components. The PCB has some snaking between its main body and the XLR section to allow some bend, the join between the main PCB and the capsule is covered with black epoxy. This fake is a black PCB with silver components and 4 capacitors. The XLR is connected directly to the PCB, with a very sloppy solder job. My curiosity got the better of me, so I plugged the mic in. It functions; it's a microphone, but it is not a good microphone, let alone in the league of the real deal. I requested a refund within 20 minutes of the microphone's arriving through my door; the seller, who does not accept returns, accepted my return within 5 minutes of my request. I'll be dropping it off at the post office later. A quick look on Ali Express shows these fakes can be bought for less than £40. Quite a good money making opportunity even if they are only selling for £205+P&P. There are a few other listings for this mic, and other high-end microphones, that I can now see are fakes; and a few more where the price has me sceptical, but there are no red flags visible in the listing photos. eBay doesn't seem to have a facility to report fake listings, neither does Reverb (which had a listing for one of my basses, using the Bass Gallery's photos from when I bought it, up until recently). There seems no avenue available through eBay to get my money back without sending the seller his counterfeit goods back and allowing him to continue with his scam. Luckily, there is a "return to" address with his full details on the delivery label. I'll be reporting him to his local police force and trading standards after my refund has been received.

I really rate the MXL CR77 as a vintage-looking mic at the cheaper end of the spectrum. I've heard great things about the Heil PR 77D, if you want to spend a bit more money. The industry standard for dynamic mics with a vintage aesthetic seems to be the Shure Super 55, but I don't get on with them at all; they do look the absolute business though.

I'm a bit of a mic addict, so I have/have had loads. I always carry, and usually use, a Shure KSM8; it's a brilliant mic to work with, it's very easy to EQ, and it seems to sound great with any singer and is very forgiving of imperfect mic technique. I often use a Neumann KMS105 too; I rarely use it if I'm not doing the sound as it requires phantom power, and I don't like to give the engineer anything else to think about; but again, it's a really easy mic to work with and you can score a really quality vocal with very limited EQing or effects. I also always carry a Lewitt MTP540 in my spares bag; it's a lot cheaper mic than the Shure or the Neumann, so I'm a little less protective of it (if I'm forced to loan a mic, it's usually this one) but I still find it to be a great mic, it sounds not dissimilar to an SM58, but a little less harsh, and it's definitely easier for me to dial in a sound I'm happy with. I also own, but rarely gig with, a Shure Super 55 and an MXL CR77; I used to use these a lot with a couple of function bands I played with where a more vintage aesthetic was desired. I bought the MXL because I wasn't the biggest fan of the Super 55 (it has the same harshness that I find in the SM58 and struggle to EQ out). When I'm engineering, I usually carry a couple of beaten up Heil PR 22s, as they're close enough sounding to 58s to satisfy most people, but have less handling noise and are easier for me to dial in.

On an average gig, I have redundancies for everything. Multiple basses, multiple amps, multiple cabinets, multiple mixers, spare mics, etc., a bag full of spare 9 volts, XLRs, 1/4" cables and strings, and I make sure that everything is fully charged before leaving the house, and I carry chargers/cables too...; I carry two iPads and can mix from my laptop and phone too (and my backup mixer is an MW1608 with physical faders). This isn't about being cheap or cutting corners; it's about not having my mic stand looking like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. I've been mixing from a tablet for the best part of a decade, and it's confusing, and frustrating, why the functionality in this feature is now less than it was 8 years ago. This is functionality that exists; it's more convenient to run it all from one device and I'd like to be able to continue doing so. If A&H have a legitimate reason for its omission, so be it, but right now, Midas/Behringer can do it, so I don't understand why A&H can't.

The Midas mixing apps (for the MR18 and the M32 variants) maintain connection, or at least functionally appear to, to the mixer; there is no resource drain on the iPad. Regardless of the technological assumptions, my question is, if Midas/Behringer can do it, why can't A&H? It's not a deal breaker for me, but it definitely feels like a step backwards compared to this feature on the MR18.

Agreed, and considering the alternative to maintaining the connection in the background is to keeping a dedicated tablet on and running the app at all times, even if it were true, the current real-use case would be more resource intensive. Even if there is a legitimate case for its functioning the way it currently does, I'd appreciate a toggle to have it function the way I'd prefer.

This is the main issue for me too; cycling between mixing and OnSong whilst playing, and mixing and Tidal for music between sets is going to be how I want to use this mixer 99% of the time. I've cited this as an example to A&H and asked what their reasoning is; I literally can't think of a single reason you'd want the mixer to disconnect automatically.

According to Rafael at A&H, the disconnecting of the mixing app when it's not in focus is a design choice. I've asked what the thinking behind this is; I'll update if I get a response.

I could do this; I've got a couple of iPads (and a couple of mic stand tablet holders). But I'd prefer to run everything from one.

Kiosk mode isn't ideal, even if it works. I want, as I can with my MR18, to be able to go into other apps (OnSong, Tidal, etc.) whilst using the mixing app and then go back into the mixing app, and I want to be able to let the tablet sleep and come back and immediately be able to mix. No client-side changes are required for this functionality in other mixing apps, so I'm sure that A&H can and will resolve it soon.

It doesn’t disconnect from the WiFi network. It disconnects from the mixing interface whilst maintaining a stable WiFi connection with the mixer. The UI is similar to the Midas/Behringer mixers. You connect to the mixer’s network and then in the app you connect to the mixer. With my Midas, as long as I’m on the network, the app maintains its connection to the mixer; with the A&H, if you’re idle, that connection is broken.

I've fed the bugs back to them already; I'll give them a bit of time before before I start suggesting improvements.

And... you can mix multiple aux outputs with a single instance of the mixing app on a single device, but the subgroups will be mirrored on all of the auxes (though the underlying levels can be separately controlled).

And though sub groups exist in the monitor mix app, they aren't available in the main mixing app (boo!).

The device disconnecting from the mixer issue happens on the CQ4You app as well as the CQ-MixPad app. I've now tested both on iPad and Android and the issue persists on both.

Here are the config adjustments you can make on the aux outs. The library feature has A&H's presets, but you can save your own there too. The quick setup feature really is quick. With the gain Auto Set, the copy paste of channels and the presets, you really can get a workable mix dialled in in seconds. Here's the processing screen using the easy presets. You're very limited as to what changes you can make to each channel, but it's very simple to switch a channel back to manual and it pulls over the settings it was using. And another bug... the "Function" dropdown goes blank after using the Soft Keys. It still functions, but it makes it even harder to recall what you've set the Soft Keys to do.

So, I can confirm, you need to set a stereo pair of outputs in the main mixing app, and this can then be selected by the CQ4You app (thanks, EBS_freak). You can then pan the individual channels from the sub-group screens. The main screen scroll wheels adjust the underlying channels relative to one another. I think this is a bug, but I can't rename the 4th sub group. It's stuck as "Me." No matter how many channels are on the main sub mixing screen (as few as 10 if you make everything a stereo pair), the FX channels stay on the second screen (I'd never have found them on my own, thanks, Chienmortbb).

I'll try this tonight and let you know.

The CQ4You app was released yesterday. I spent a bit of time playing with it last night (on the train in the demo environment, so please take the below with a pinch of salt until I've had the opportunity to test it with the mixer tonight). I installed it on my Android phone, a Pixel 6a. The main page has four sub groups and a master fader that can be set to any one of the six aux outs. The app suggests you lock the fader to the output you're using to stop erroneous changes to the wrong monitor mix. If you double click a sub group you can name it. Just like the channels on the main mixing app, sub-group names are limited to six characters. Once you've named your sub group, you can select which channels you want to put in it. To add sub groups you click "ASSIGN" and you're then presented with a screen that shows you all 16 mono inputs and stereos 1, 3 and 4 (stereos 1 and 2 are dual 1/4 inch TS cables, stereo 3 is USB and stereo 4 is Bluetooth — I don't know why stereo 2 isn't selectable — perhaps it's visible on the 20B which is the only mixer to offer a second dual TS input, I'll confirm later). You're not limited to the number of channels you add to a subgroup. After selecting the channels you want in your sub group, you click "BACK" and you can then mix the channels within the subgroup. You're limited to master volume only, and, presumably, post EQ (there is no option to choose). After selecting, naming and mixing all of your desired sub groups, you can go back to the main page where you can control the four sub-group faders and the master out. If you change the aux output, your mix follows you to the new aux output — so you can't use one phone to mix multiple monitor mixes, every user has to use their own device to mix their own monitor. FX isn't mixable. If I control the monitor mix via the main mixing app, I can add the FX channels to the monitor mix. If you do it via CQ4You, you can't get any FX. Stereo mixes aren't possible. It's not even possible to hack a stereo monitor mix, as the app will literally only allow you to mix to a single aux output. And finally, the sub groups are entirely defined within CQ4You, so sub-group functionality is still non-existent within the main mixing app. This is a mixed bag for me. The app is, in some ways, more functional than I expected, but the end result (no stereo, no FX) is less than I'd hoped for. Though, you could argue, if someone is wanting to handle their own stereo, FX-infused mix, why not give them access to the main mixing app and let them do it there. Being able to mix USB and Bluetooth is good, as, if you're playing with backing tracks, it gives you more options to get those tracks into the mix. I guess, much like the main mixing app, CQ-MixPad, CQ4You is a good starting point, and I imagine that A&H will make improvements in the short term that could turn this setup into a real powerhouse.