the t.bone EM 800

I have to admit, even after reading all the positive reviews I've been pleasantly surprised by this little chap. It comes in a hard plastic case, lined with foam. The plastic feels a little on the cheap side, but should be fine so long as you don't go chucking the case about like a lunatic.

Vocals/speech come through in their entirety, clear and bright. This would work fine for podcasting/commentary's etc, and you get a pretty decent sense of the room you're recording in too, meaning it could do a decent job with a couple of people on one mic. It's also great for recording guitars/instruments as a room mic, where a sense of the space can really make the difference on a recording. I've not tried it for close micing in this situation yet, but I have high hopes.

If you're after a small diaphragm condenser, you can do a lot worse for a lot more cash!

I would recommend this microphone for those who occasionally need to record acoustic instruments. I found it to be a good match for steel string guitar, chords, pluck or soloing. It also does OK percussive instruments.
The sonic character is bright or even brittle, but it will take up lows too if you get close enough.
The signal is nice and strong.

Build quality is OK, but there are sturdier mics out there. Getting it into the holder was a bit of a struggle, and the holder itself is not impressive.

Good value, and well suited for some jobs. If I lost this one, I'd get another.

I bought this to overhead a drum kit for live sound use when funds were short and didn't expect much. The feeble box reinforced these fears, however, 4 years later not replaced it. Tried all sorts of other more expensive (£150 ish) mics in it's place and I can only match it, not better it. It has an nice ambient open sound which works really well on a drum overhead, the only down side is that it the GBF is a bit on the low side due to it's lack of directivity. Definitely not for the rock band world but great in our live but quiet environment. Close miked kick, single on the snare/hi-hat, one of these as an overhead for toms and cymbals... sorted. :)

The t.bone EM 800 is a good, clear sounding microphone. Great for drum overheads or mic'ing instruments where you want a clear top end sound.

It's nothing fancy, with no settings on the mic for a pic up pattern.

If I'm honest; there are other Mics on the market that can offer a better quality sound, but these mics are significantly more expensive. If you have a small budget, I'd recommend trying this mic as it produces a good clean sound.

The mic clip (provided) is a rubber circle, that the mic slides into. It feels quite tight, and might be a little difficult to get the mic into at first; but it certainly means the mic is in and won't fall out.

Just don't forget to power it with 48V/PP!

bought this as an alternative mic for some home recordings.

The build quality is much better than I was expecting. It's a solid metal body and feels and looks 'pro'.

Sound quality is great at this price, it's great on hi-hats and percussion but I've also used it on vocals since it brightens up my voice which can be quite dark sounding. Obviously don't expect miracles at this price but its perfectly useable and on the right source will sound great.

I have quite a few budget mics and this seems to be the least noisy of the bunch. The only hint that its a budget piece of gear is that you you get some ground hum if you handle the mic, but this isn't an issue since it's not the type of mic you'd hold anyway. There's no hum at all when it's setup on the stand ready to record.

I love these budget mics because they tend to have more 'character' than the expensive mics which are designed to have a very flat frequency response.
At this price it's just worth having and useful to have around as an alternative mic to try out on different sources. Very pleased and will probably get another for some xy recordings.

I'm a poor graduate student who needed a SDC at a good price. I had a pair of C03 from Samson but they were way too noisy, and the Audix and Audio-Technica SDCs people recommended were way outside of my budget.

Then I found the EM 800.

The EM 800 looks good and sounds amazing. With low noise, high sensitivity and a tight polar pattern, it's a perfect fit for booming indoor dialogue shots.

Plus it's cheap as hell, outperforming mics 10x its price.

I will be recommending this mic to anyone considering another SDC. The EM 800 should be the first and only option for someone serious about recording.