Condenser mic recommendations

[BrunoBass]

I’m looking to get a new condenser mic for the home studio - my budget is around £150-175. I’ll be using it for vocals and acoustic guitar only.
I’m investigating products like the Rode NT1A, Sontronics STC2, Audio Technica AT2020. Any advise, experience, recommendations gratefully received, thanks. 

[Bobthedog]

I have just bought the AT2020 and so far am very happy with it. Bass and vocals only but it has the range. Apparently quite popular due to reasonable price (£70ish). I am all very new to this so cannot say much more about it though. For your money perhaps lookout the AT2035 too?

[GrumpyBassist]

For the money? You won't beat a T-Bone but for versatility... Rode... every time..!

I use a Rode mic to record my acoustic as it's simultaneously DI'd (I like the possibility to add more real live room) and its crisp! Just make sure your cat's not about. I used to use the same setup for a double bass but now I use A Zoom H6 for that as it means I don't have to carry it upstairs. The Zoom has a nice set of mics.

[Bleat]

Studio Projects B1 is a great condenser mic with a good reputation in that price range or the Audio Technica AT2020. The B1 got me the best results with the least amount of tweaking to sit well in mixes.

[BrunoBass]

Thanks all, a couple of mics in there I hadn’t heard of, I’ll investigate.

[MoonBassAlpha]

I have the Rode, it does fine, though I find my RedV dynamic mic works particularly well for my singer's voice, at a fraction of the price.

[linear]

I own a pair of the Studio Projects B1 mics mentioned above and they are a good, if unexciting, microphone.  Very natural sounding.  I recently got very good results recording an accordion, of all things, with one of them.

I've done a comparison of the NT1 and NT2 on vocals and much preferred the NT2.  I was surprised how much I could hear a difference, given my lo-fi ears.  Not sure if they were the A versions though.  My conclusion was that I'd rather buy a cheaper mic than the NT1, or save up for an NT2.

The AT2020 is extremely popular, but I wonder how much this has got to do with the 'youtube' effect - they are very popular with podcasters and video streamers.  It also annoys me that it's marketed as a large diaphragm condenser when it's really not.  Those are kind of irrational reasons to not buy one though. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by linear