Peluso P-87 Microphone

Peluso Microphone Lab P-87

American manufacturer Peluso have just released their take on the classic U87 microphone design called the Peluso P-87. John Peluso, the man behind the name, has over 30 years of experience servicing and repairing many vintage mics and as well as being able to repair diaphragms on many classic designs, his very successful own branded selection of microphones has grown from strength to strength. With already a very comprehensive range of Solid-State, Valve and Ribbon mics the P-87 looks to be another suitable addition. The Peluso design is based on the 1970's version of the U87. The outer brass body metalwork is similar in appearance to the Peluso P67 with the same styling and feel, stamped with logo and model number. On the rear of the body, there is a -10db Pad switch and Roll-Off switch as you would expect and the mic comes complete with shock mount, stand clip, foam windshield and a case for the whole package. The shock mount is styled like their other designs, and whilst the appearance may look chunky and utilitarian, it's definitely solid, so no need to won't worry about it letting you down. The classic U87 through a Neve 1073 preamp chain is one that has been used for many years, and vocalists, acoustic guitars, drum overheads, backing vocals, amps, you name it - have been recorded with a U87 mic. I've always had great success with these style of mics on Vox Ac30's paired up with a ribbon room mic, as well as vocals. There has always been a bit of a love/hate thing with engineers about the U87 type of sound, but you can't deny that as a single mic to have at your disposal it's an extremely good one to start with. By providing Cardioid, Omni-directional and Figure8 polar patterns the P-87 becomes a very multi-purpose user mic. The custom output transformer in the P-87 controls the transients with a very low noise floor throughout the precision laser trimmed FET circuit.

So how does it sound?

Well, I thought it best to create some audio clips with the Peluso P-87 and then thought let's add some more by mics that would be expected to be up against it and compare. So below are audio clips by 3 microphones :

• Neumann U87 AI
• Peluso P-87
• Neumann TLM103.

I'm including it in a Blind Test Voting Poll for a week before releasing the results * The Recording chain was each Microphone into Universal Audio's 6176 mic preamp with just a touch of UAD-2 Lexicon 224 on the vocal tracks to give them some space. No EQ or Compression was used on any of the recorded examples. Whilst, not a scientific experiment, these performances give an idea of what each mic can offer.

The Examples :

The Voting Results :

After a week of voting ( thank you for everybody who took part ) the results received were as follows :

The most popular result from the voting was :

A is the U87, B is the P-87 and C is the TLM103

*The Actual 'Which Mic is Which' Result :

A: Peluso P-87

B: Neumann TLM103

C: Neumann U87Ai

When the P-87 was in development I was keen obviously to hear how it would sound but also very interested to see where the price point would be with what is a very crowded microphone market already, and I think Peluso have not disappointed here. Definitely one for the audition list.