Quality: 7.5
Built solidly - the tolerances on the body are within expectations for a Chinese built mic.....good but not perfect (it doesn't disassemble like butter but not bad at all).
Would prefer not to have the bars on the grill but I don't know that it's effecting the sound negatively ('cause I haven't removed them yet, but might do it to one of mine).
The shock-mount is a VERY nice design - better than even some expensive shock-mounts (in design).
Mic design is
Velvet-Elvis retro cool.
Packaging and presentation are very good.
Reliability: 9
Solid, not a single problem.
Overall Rating: 7.75
Mortal, be careful when you state that the K-6 uses superior components. In today's world, the topology of the K-6 would be considered inferior to the classics. You see, the K6 uses surface mounted components, the same as the new Neumanns, Rodes, the Silicon Valve Series MXL mics (which I happen to like too, especially the M3).
That said, I really like the K-6. IMO, it beats up, knocks down, and throws out of the ring a lot of today's other ribbon mics.
I got the last two of an early batch that was on sale for $150 each (when they were listed on the site for $369 each). Basically, it seems I had them in my cart for a couple of days before I pulled the trigger, and when I did, it was past the deadline (I had no idea), although it still came up as $150 each.
Cynthia Lee contacted me and asked me how I was able to *make the site* charge me only $150 when they had been back to the original price for some days (she was concerned I hacked the site - I assured her I didn't and didn't even know how to). I had no idea.....which is when we figured out it must have been the cart thingy.
Cynthia said they were out of mics from the production run but promised to make good on it, which she did (yay Karma!).
Interestingly, I wound up with two mics that sound distinctly different. I contacted them and they said no problem, send them back and we will send two from the next production run (again, yay Karma).
But then, a friend of mine pointed out how I said I really preferred one on voice with a certain preamp and how I liked other attributes of the other. So, against theoretically-conventional wisdom, and since I really was not likely to need these for stereo pairs, I trusted my ears and decided to keep my unique K-6s and haven't looked back.
I always recommend this mics to anyone who will listen.
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If I may offer a suggestion to those who review gear, maybe we can not have all 10s, like Harmony Central. otherwise, Brandon might have to go to an Olympic style rating system (9.8 from John Doe, 9.45 from his brother Harvey, 8.7 from sister Matilda - who is still figuring out which end of the mic to sing into).