Blue Spark vs MXL 990s for home studio (vocals & acoustic)

[brettryantalley]

hey all. visiting family & planning on doing a little recording with my niece. the only mic i've ever really owned is a studio b1 from like 2002. it died on me & i need to get one really quick and don't want to spend more than $100. I know...not much.

Guitar Center has a MXL 990s Patriot Edition for $55 brand new, but someone in the area has a blue spark for that they'd sell me for $75 that is new too.

Market Price on the Spark is $100 more than the MXL, so I'm guessing it's worth the extra 20 to get the Spark?

[Sam Spoons]

Paul White liked it https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/blue-spark I'd say the Spark would be the best buy by some margin.

BTW I have a couple of MXL Cubes, excellent mics for the money I paid and the jobs they get asked to do so I'm not anti MXL just that at this end of the market the extra cash usually results in a better product. I also have a 'Blue Reactor' which is a better all round mic than the Cubes but cost rather more too.

Have a nice Christmas

edit :- just looked at the MXL and the UK price retail is little different to the Spark which suggests quality may well be similar, the fact the Walmart stock them might put you off though

[The Elf]

I bought an MXL990 as a starter mic for my nephew a few years back. I can't honestly say that it's really much good, TBH. IME any MXL9* mic is fairly naff. That's a pity, because I do like lot of MXL's mic's and am especially fond of the V67G and the sadly discontinued V6.

[Sam Spoons]

Just to follow up Elf's post, my MXL Cubes are marketed as percussion mics and as such work very well on kick and on electric guitar cabs. They do lack top end (considering that they are capacitor mics) for acoustic guitars and such like. I had assumed this was a characteristic of the Cube specifically given it's avowed purpose but if it's a general thing with MXL LDCs then that would be a bad thing.