Warm Audio WA-47 Review // Watch before buying!

In this video I check out the Warm Audio WA-47 which is a take on one of the most iconic and sought after tube microphones of all time...the Neumann u47. Does it sound good? Does it give a different vibe to other mics? Is it built well and is it good value?

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0:00 Hello
1:43 Features
2:23 Rant
4:29 Rant over!
5:24 Build quality
7:27 User experience
8:23 Test clips
11:46 Sound quality brain dump
12:55 Value & alternatives
14:39 Pros & cons
16:31 Opinion

#warmaudio #neumann #heritageaudio

[jorgiewtf]

Both the 47 and the 84 mics are amazing. I have both and I mainly use the 47 for electric guitars as the bass response is amazing!

[krissheehy]

WA-47 is a great sounding microphone (I own one and love it), but you cannot escape the fact that quality differences between a Neumann U47 and a WA-47 are vast like an ocean. It's like buying a Chinese hammer from Temu and comparing the longevity to a hefty hammer from Home Depot. One will last and the other won't. I love Warm Audio a LOT... I have a ton of their gear, but there is a reason why things cost more. With Warm Audio, I've had to send back, exchange, or warranty a third of my equipment. Thank goodness for their 5-year warranty!

[javialexarias]

Wa-47 is awesome bro!!
I want the wa-47 and the wa 8000 :")
I hope that you can share that videos, That will be so great!

[drewg]

Just bought it and can’t wait. You nailed it on not caring, so many benders always complaining and not even recording. We don’t care about opinions, we care about sound! Acoustic sounds great man. Just great.

[icaris]

my last production i used this mic for vocals and recordimg guitart through my amp. its nice

[ikigai]

Great review. My box was fine, perhaps it's a bit of their Chinese quality control? I do find the no dust cover knock a tad nit picky as everyone has multiple things around the house they can just throw over the mic if they're too lazy to place it back in it's box when not in use, whatever keeps the cost down, as long as they're not cutting corners on component internals. I just use a clean micro fiber cloth. By the way I just upgraded the tube in mine and it really brought it to another level. Better tone, and no more of that faint rustling noise it made that sounds like hamsters in a blanket trying to find a comfortable sleeping position. After a ton of research of the experts and people that mod them for a living seem to agree that the NOS GE JAN 5751 Halo Getters were the best replacement so I went with that. Mine was made in 1969, American made, replacing the Russian Made Tung-Sol from 2008.

[jpblahblah]

Harv, why don't you make a guitar cover/music in this channel with your wa-84 and wa-47, I think that will really showcase the mic and your talents to the full extent. Cheers!

[jalind]

A nice review looking at the WA-47 and very helpful to me for hearing some things before making a decision amongst Warm Audio's large diaphragm condenser mics for a specific application.

The power supply and the cable are extremely important to the stability of the circuitry of the microphone. The cable is really about two things.

First, the isolation of the audio signal from the power lines running in parallel to it plus the rejection of nearby electrical and electromagnetic noise. Especially for studio work. Really low noise high isolation balanced audio line is not inexpensive although it doesn't need to be the way over-hyped consumer marketed stuff that is sold to those whose deposit accounts are held by Fort Knox. Canare quad is an outstanding example of really good studio grade audio cable. It is not inexpensive but it also does not have a Fort Knox price point. There is another equally good audio cable I'd use although Canare quad is what I use when I make my cables. A nearly 100% coverage braided shield preferably with a conductive rubber layer to eliminate flex noise is not inexpensive to produce. Quad signal conductors inside would be ideal, but a single twisted pair will be adequate to get to the power supply. Hopefully, the power supply is running really well filtered DC including the tube heaters (filaments) which is not truly necessary in some applications such as table radios, but is truly necessary in a tube mic. Any AC ripple on the heater supply will, because it is a high current supply, will bleed into the audio line adjacent to it no matter how well shielded it is. Zero noise is too much to ask with even the highest quality solid state rectifiers and filter capacitors in the tube supply. There is always semiconductor junction, capacitor, and resistor noise. The better the audio cable, the better the end result.

Second, the gauge of the copper power conductors in the cable make a huge difference in the voltage stability of the circuitry in the microphone. Cheap cables use minuscule conductors. The tube requires a relatively high current for the heaters (filaments). A tiny gauge creates a resistance in the cable that creates a voltage drop between power supply and the vacuum tube. Not good for having the tube operate according to specification. A tiny gauge in the high voltage supply also creates a resistance in the cable that creates a voltage drop between the power supply and the vacuum tube. For the high voltage to be stable in the tube, the gauge needs to be large enough gauge (a lower number) to make the cable resistance nil compared to the tube resistance. Otherwise, the tube voltage will vary as the conductivity of the tube varies during signal amplification. The variation will correspond exactly to the signal amplitude. This is not good for linear amplification of the really tiny signal the tube is amplifying -- the amplification will be non-linear.

There is a budget C-12 clone that comes with an insanely poor power supply and cable. I have one. It has good internal parts in the mic circuit board. It needs, and I built one, a far better power supply. It also needs a different and much higher quality cable -- I bought one for slightly less than $80 made by a well-known and reputable maker. The price point is obviously reached by including a total junk power supply and cable with it. I may put Neutrik ends on the mic/power cable at some point. Simply replacing the power supply and cable with a really high quality one improves that microphone enormously and is immediately noticeable to an audio engineer. A dramatic improvement. I will probably replace the capsule with a much improved C-12 style capsule, but that improvement, whilst important, is nowhere near as dramatic as changing the power supply and cable. My take on this is that whilst it may seem some hype for Warm Audio to tout the cable, it is a very good one and it is worth noting considering the really bad total junk cables and power supplies that are sold with budget oriented tube microphones. It is worth noting that Warm Audio did not sacrifice this part of the microphone build for getting to a good price point.

[berkeleybernie]

Thanks. Would have been interesting to hear your compressed/EQed vocal as well.

[robloomis]

Great video. Thanks for the information. Very helpful.

[drumsbyjones]

Subbed! Great content bro and I love your approach!

[carminelombardi]

Here's a reality, until the singer sings into a mic, you don't know which mic best suits that singers performance, additionally when a singer loves a specific mic it gets a better performance out of them. I buy my mics from a well known dealer that allows me to return it within 2 weeks, so I can find the one that works for me. However in a studio you'll require a decent range of mics to suit different vocals, or a great option is to look at the Slate Digital VM1, that emulates all the great studio mics.

[MarioTorre]

One may say that a 30k vintage microphone sounds definitely better at picking every nuance of an untreated home studio room than the cheaper clone alternative🤣

[alex.florin.prod_shorts]

A video on WA CX12? Would love to see your opinion on it

[TheHungryPigeon]

Good work man, but consider using a de-esser for your narration.

[HarvinderSingh-yyth]

Naumann can't be beaten in any way since they have their own standard harmonic sound texture.

[shriramrabinthiran]

Nice video Harv. On a separate note, what are you using for audio?? It sounds soo good honesty

[davepriddle]

I’ve watched a few reviews on this mic, and I’ll repeat myself here: It’s all relative… would a U47 be 10/20 grand better than this? It depends on what you’re recording. For my home studio the Warm Audio is everything I’ll ever need (and I have now taken the plunge to upgrade my Rode NTK) - recording my solo music for my mediocre 1000 streams…. It’s absolutely top notch, and all I’ll ever need for my vocals. If I was a Top 10 hit maker, touring the world, would I ask for the Neumann? Probably. Close your eyes, forget the brand, enjoy the mic. — was the Neumann 25, 000 when they were available to purchase? I would imagine they were around 100/200? Accounting for inflation what’s that? 3 grand? So roughly the price of a modern….. oh wait…. A modern Neumann.

[lcdavis]

I love warm audio stuff. I have the WA 73 the WA 2A the WA76 the WA87 the WA 47 and the WA 251 next is the WA 1b

[thesadarsenalfan]

Really needs some de-essing. But thats doable to fix. Sounds great overall out of the box tho, waow!!