AEA R88A Active Stereo Ribbon Microphone

The AEA R88A Active Stereo Ribbon Microphone with custom toroid transformers captures sound as your ears hear it with an honest, open tonality. The R88A effortlessly records the sonic intricacies of drums, strings, piano, and other instruments that produce complex transients.

The extra 12 dB of transformer gain is advantageous when recording quiet sources like vocals or soft acoustic guitars. The active impedance buffers help prevent noise interference on long cable runs or when operating near large lighting rigs. The R88A requires standard 48V phantom power to operate.

R88 SERIES

R88 Series ribbon mics capture sound as your ears hear it, with an honest and open tonality. The R88 and R88A effortlessly record complex sources like drums, strings, piano, and other instruments that produce intricate transients, harsher highs, and bellowing lows.

The stereo R88 captures a space as it sounds live and in person, with all the present subtlety and nuance. Its expansive frequency response and balanced low end make it superbly effective when capturing the full breadth of sound from the back of a room or above a drum set.

Alongside the mono AEA N8, it boasts the widest frequency range of any mic in the AEA lineup and effortlessly manages more complex source audio like drums, strings, piano, and other instruments that produce intricate transients, harsher highs, and bellowing lows. The Blumlein configuration of the ribbons allows for a sweeping range of perspective, so an entire ensemble and room can be captured by the R88 alone.

The R88A retains the same sonic character of the R84 but offers an additional 12 dB of output and a stable impedance that allows flexibility when recording quiet sources through any preamp.

THE ENGINEER’S SECRET WEAPON

R88 Series mics are an engineer’s secret weapon, offering a level of detail and balance in recording like no other microphone available. Packaged in a sleek, five-pound black shell designed for quick setup, it’s an excellent choice for remote recording.

Particularly well suited for the rock, roots, classical, Americana and jazz genres, R88 Series microphones have such versatility that engineers like John Cuniberti use it as their one mic to capture an entire band performing live in the same room. There is a reason that legendary Blackbird Studios in Nashville owns five R88s.

A RICH HISTORY

The design of the R88 Series borrows from serious stereo recording tradition. In 1931, EMI engineer Alan Blumlein invented stereo recording by demonstrating the natural reproduction of the soundstage in one of the Abbey Road studios in London.

Today, Blumlein’s XY coincident recording technique lives on in the AEA R88 Series, which uses two figure-of-8 ribbons for producing an authentic representation of a performance. The pair of elements are angled in perfect phase at 90 degrees and mounted in close proximity to each other along the vertical axis of the microphone.

As an alternative to Blumlein’s technique, the microphone can also be used for mid-side (MS) stereo, providing excellent mono compatibility and full control over the width of the stereo image.

Either way, the R88 Series is so easy to use that any recording novice can do it. Simply choose where to place the mic and hit record. It’s that easy.

FEATURES:

• Same award-winning stereo perspective as the passive R88mk2
• Phantom powered (48 V) version of AEA's classic R88mk2 with 12 dB more transformer gain
• Compatible with any preamp and input impedance
• Fast, accurate transient reproduction
• Stereo ribbon microphone that offers a natural sound
• Captures amazingly precise stereo imagery with a single mic
• Larger-than-normal ribbon elements handle high SPLs with ease
• Figure-8, Blumlein Configuration (90 degrees) polar pattern
• 141 dB max SPL