Manley Reference Silver: the best among reference series microphones

Today we bring you the Reference Silvermicrophone from Manley Labs. The Reference Silver is the microphone that stands out the most among the 3 mics in the Reference series.

The first, the Reference Cardioid in black coloring, is the brightest because it has a bump on the high frequencies. The Reference Gold version , on the other hand, is the most balanced with flat frequency response.

The Silver version, which we offer today, is the darker, softer and more rounded version, at times similar to the behavior of a ribbon microphone but without being too radical. It has a frequency response from 10Hz up to 30kHz with a maximum SPL of as much as 150 dB, this allows the microphone to be used even in situations with high sound pressure sources.

The design of the Manley Reference Silver

Speaking of the design, we find the microphone already housed at its shockmount really well made, in very light aluminum; body with interesting and attractive pattern and the golden capsule also housed in its own shockmount. The capsule, in fact, is held tightly between rubber portions that act as shockmount to eliminate any kind of vibration.

As you can see, the capsule's protective grille, is really only designed for the purpose of protection so its mesh is loosely woven, this allows air to pass through and thus not be blocked by the grille. It is, therefore, strongly recommended to use an antipop filter in front of the microphone in all those situations where we have air displacement, trivially think of recording a voice.

This is a choice made by Manley who wants to give the user the possibility of using the microphone while fully enjoying its ability to record sound sources even with high frequencies perhaps sibilant, which with a too dense grid would go to hinder the reproduction and capture.

The advantages of the external power supply

The microphone is alsovery light because we have a separate power supply.

Its power supply was developed especially for this Reference series of microphones and is very quiet, moreover, it is universal, automatically adapting to different mains voltages and thus without the need to change any settings it can work at 100V American or 230V European for example.

The external power supply also provides 48V phantom power to the microphone, as well as, of course, powering the tube circuit.

Included accessories

Included with the purchase of the microphone is its sturdy case for safe transport, dust cover for the capsule when the microphone is not in use, its special mount, the power supply and microphone of course, and the very long cable, I think it is 5 meters, with 7-pin ends, in fact the microphone has a 7-pin male connection.

Manley Reference Silver Specifications

Microphone that sounds good on virtually all sound sources, great on vocals, very smooth especially for singers with very squeaky voices, the Silver model is like it already works as a de-being and gives warmth to the voice.

Very nice on the snare drum, which sounds natural and rounder in the mids. We enjoyed it so much on the drum room, with high compression we can get a giant room but soft on the highs and round on the lows.

Interesting also on the kick drum, you don't get modern sounds for sure but it depends on the genre you want to record, it might be interesting paired with another more dedicated microphone.

I wanted to compare it with a ribbon microphone on the guitar cabinet because Manley itself, because it has a very high SPL, recommends using it in all those situations where we would like to use a ribbon microphone but we are afraid that the ribbon might break due to the high sound pressures.

The response is very similar, very dark, but definitely not as radical as a ribbon mic, but I appreciated it, very interesting.