Kniferide wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 2:06 pm

tommy wrote: Tue Mar 04, 2025 10:53 am
MK02 is the best deal going.

Especially used on like Craigslist or even Reverb sometimes. I occasionally see the for around $150 and got one for $80 on Ebay because it were missing the pad.

As for the fakes, a friend of mine had one purchased from a Guitar Center in Chicago and it looked and felt almost exact to a real one, only real tell was the copper dimple instead of silver. They sounded almost exact to a real one as well. We could not tell the difference at all. All of my real ones are branded ASM, some people think that is the tell but it isn't. Some people seem to think all the real ones have serial numbers printed on them, also not true, that is just the original first batch imported my ASM. From what I can tell the main way to tell is the silver dimple and point at the capsules. If I could find a bunch of fakes for dirt cheap, like 4 for a hundo or something, I'd buy them cause again, sounded the same to me.

airloom wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 7:55 pm I used to have what I was sure was a fake. It sounded terrible.

Kniferide wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 8:03 pm

airloom wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 7:55 pm I used to have what I was sure was a fake. It sounded terrible.

Yeah that's what I hear about most of them, but side by side we could not really tell the difference at all. We only tested it as a drum overhead. I have 4 of them that all have silver sputtered contacts, friends had copper. It was the only thing I remember being different. His also did not come in the little plastic case like all of mine did I think. I actually wonder how many fake ones were really out there because I have only ever seen the one. I DO know there are a TON of fake SM57's, SM7b's out there. So many on Ebay. I would only buy these mics from a repeatable dealer these days cause the used market is swarmed.

thecr4ne wrote: Thu Mar 06, 2025 12:00 pm

Kniferide wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 8:03 pm

airloom wrote: Wed Mar 05, 2025 7:55 pm I used to have what I was sure was a fake. It sounded terrible.

Yeah that's what I hear about most of them, but side by side we could not really tell the difference at all. We only tested it as a drum overhead. I have 4 of them that all have silver sputtered contacts, friends had copper. It was the only thing I remember being different. His also did not come in the little plastic case like all of mine did I think. I actually wonder how many fake ones were really out there because I have only ever seen the one. I DO know there are a TON of fake SM57's, SM7b's out there. So many on Ebay. I would only buy these mics from a repeatable dealer these days cause the used market is swarmed.

The authoritative take on "fake" oktava's, from way back when. There may be newer fakes that don't fit this description though, not sure.
http://recordinghacks.com/fake-oktava-mk-012-photos/

Also, if you have a problematic MK012, You can get some nicely made PCB's for them. http://russelltechnologies.co.uk/rt-012.html
I have a few, haven't done the swap over yet, but I have done it on some MK18's with boards this dude made for me. Fixed issues with the mics and they work great.
I tried doing a few MK-219's, but I broke the reed switches, so if you take that on, be fucking careful with those things.