Thanks for all the feedback and questions! If you want to ask more detailed questions about this video, feel free to join our Patreon and ask me all you like. We also have put this stem session up on our Patreon for download in 32/96 ! Thank you ! www.patreon.com/boulevardrecording

I made this video so that everyone could hear them and decide for themselves. Just like you have! No one sponsored anything. I was genuinely curious. Not even AKG has attempted to make these since the 60’s. And I think it’s a hard task to tackle Warm or not. They’re hand wound pickups on these. Thanks for the comments !

Absolutely superb video! Couldn’t think of a better person to do this video than you my friend! Thanks Clay

Every time I thought the WA19s sounded worse, when it cut to the D19 it sounded the same as I was thinking of. Pretty indistinguishable on drums. What a time to be alive!

To me they sound different on every source. I don’t have experience w the d19 nor am I loyal to any company per se. But in this video I do think the akg sound better. There’s more presence for sure in the wa. But for the price you can’t beat that. Thanks for the video and what great job you did.

Toms sounded identical, but snare and hihat were very different. I preferred the D19s by far on snare and hihat.

AKG sounds like records, Warm Audio sounds like it’d need some eq to get sources where you’d want them.

I always appreciate when someone goes to this kind of trouble and allows all of us to actually hear an unbiased comparison. I am sure this was a lot of work.

Great video comparing the two. I’ve had a few vintage in my collection and used them regularly. I like so many we’re wanting these to be close. Sad to say they are not. The vintage sounded more balanced generally than the extended Warms. I also could not help hearing an odd midrange whistle on nearly every source. Very noteworthy on the snare, guitar and piano. Something like a 1.8 - 2.2 (if I had to guess). I was actually waiting for this video to decide how soon I should get a handful of these and try them out. So thank you but I will be saving that for a later time. These do not scratch my itch unfortunately. Again thank you for the effort put into this video as it’s everything I’d want to hear it on. Cheers.

Well, they are certainly both microphones.

This is amazing, thanks for taking the time to make!! Have never owned a D19 so this was super informative and fun to hear. Great examples too, each one was revealing in a different way.

It is crazy that the D19 at piano immediately sounded like Beatles piano.

I still prefer the darker D19s... on everything you demo'd here. They were noticeably smoother and didn't have that mid range honk. It would have been cool if they had put a high roll off on the the WA19s or something. Maybe the WA19's will push the price of some D19s down. Either way, thanks for doing this! I'll save my money for something else!

whenever Boulevard puts out a new vid its instant watch. was waiting for a proper comparison on these. it's claymagedon time haha

Thanks for making this Clay, I just ordered 3 of them. Looking forward to the mics.

Great comparison! Not easy to compare ... a lot of the old D19s sound wildly different IMHO. I already got a pair of WA-19s, didn't have the time to check them yet, but I'm very happy that Warm Audio brought the D19 back!

Great video! I waited ages for someone to shootout the original D19 against the WA-19 🙂. Mine arrived last week and i did a quick video shootout on my channel against some other mono overheads. But i have no original D19...so thank you for this perfect video! When i first heard my WA19 soloed, i was kind of shocked from its sound..my first impression was: thin, cheap, and ugly...but in the mix (i used it as mono overhead between some coles 4038) it really shined. I tested against M201, M260N, SM57 and a WA47jr as mono overhead, and non of them filled the gap i was searching for. I am really happy with the sound, and i like it´s kind of edgy ugly sound. The WA 19 really does not come close to the depth (and resolution) of the original in your video, but like the Warm Audio WA19... it not the original, it has its own sound.

Cool vid, Clay! I currently own only 1 vintage AKG D19C, but I bought 3 of the Warm Audio Mics a few weeks ago. I only tried it on guitar to quickly test it, and you just filled in the blanks for me ! So now I have four total (including the vintage one) to mic drums with and I think for 200 bucks each it's a No-brainer! At the price they are I may buy 2 more! Thanks for making the vid. Loved how you compared the sound to the vintage in each case. Well done!

Thanks 👍 your videos are great. Keep them coming!!!

Really noticeable difference on the snare and hi hats, but… I think I prefer the Warm. The leakage on the snare sounded a bit more pleasing and usable, not as rough and barky. Glad to see Warm Audio getting some genuine love and not being written off just because of their price point. Well done, Clay!

Some of the time I could barely, if at all, tell the difference, but when I could clearly hear a difference, the AKG just blew the wa-19 away to my ears. The wa-19 just lacked depth and seemed to dampen some of the ring from the toms, and it sounded thin on the snare. On the guitar and piano it was more apparent that the wa-19's had a lot more mid range, which I didn't find that pleasing to be honest. If you had some wa-19's you'd use them and they'd be ok, but I don't think I'd deliberately go out and buy some. Cheers Clay !

Wow. That really covered a lot of territory. Thanks so much. Off to get a couple.

Clay! love these gear reviews /beatles videos.

Great demo, thanks Clay!

thanks for this. will definitely get a couple of these. Although I have to say, they do sound so much different to the vintage ones 😀 The top end has a completely different character altogether, almost makes no sense comparing them. Thanks for the ton of work that clearly went into this.

Generally encouraging results. The piano was the most dramatic difference. Would be interesting to know if each of the vintage D19s have as wide a variance from each other. Hopefully this means WA will also do the D12. Too bad AKG can't get their act together to do proper reissues on anything.

The 'quality' of the midrange is bit of a far stretch, it's definitely a different mic. I think they sounded fairly close on toms, and considering that vintage d19's are often dead from close miking drums I would 100% use them at that. Great video Clay, appreciate the comparison.

Great vid man. Agree with this. They don't have that filtery mid range thing going on exactly but to be honest I don't think that's a bad thing. The top end is ace and most things sit really nice with them without too much faff.

Great comparison, this made me crave a pair of D19s, beautiful sounding mics.

The only part of the kit that I thought the AKG sounded objectively better was the snare. While the WA is a slightly different flavor, it sounds damn good on those toms and even better on the hi hat

Hi Hats sounded better on the WA19 because the WA’s are thinner and brighter. Toms didn’t have the same punch. Neither did snare. Would love to see Warm Audio do a D12/D20

Thanks for sharing and i just cut a record all WA-19s on drums! Totally blow away how close with compression you can get the old school vibe. The fidelity is to me the difference fresh new mic to 50-60 year old mic. Great job and thanks for sharing. I own officially 3 now Ha ❤❤❤

Great job Warm Audio! Please do a version of the D30 next to pair with these 19's. Even more awesome still would be a remake of the Beyerdynamic M380! It's imho _THE_ best bass microphone money can buy. Literally _all_ it gives you is low frequencies and it's got a fogure 8 pickup pattern. So when it's inside the kick, it picks up the batter and the resonant heads and because of it's nulls on each side of the figure 8 pickup pattern, it eliminates the "bouncing basketball" like reflections inside the kick. Also, it has a _VERY_ high output so it can be treated like a line level source and used without a preamp. So you can plug it directly into your compressor and straight to tape/your DAW. Its equally as fantastic on a bass amp although because of its almost exclusively sub/bass frequency spectrum, it needs to be paired with a mic that has more of a midrange frequency spectrum (like for instance a 421 or 57). Which is actually a _strength_ imho because then, you can use/blend to taste the two mics as a more natural form of "EQ." Everyone who's used them, loves them but they are exceedingly rare and when they do come up for sale, run anywhere from $1500 to $2100. Likely more in the near future. I could have bought one in mint condition with its original box, paperwork and sticker from the eBay page of a popular pawn shop in NYC for $1600+tax and shipping but I hesitated and missed out. I _deeply_ regret that decision.

Thanks for the video Clay … you’re right they do sound good for the money but they are voiced slightly differently imo . The acoustic guitar and piano really showed the difference in the mid range …. But as you said a decent mic for sensible money

NICE! AKG's def have a bit more Low/Low-mid info but the warms sound a little faster... it's nice, espec. on OH/hats...

Thought they sounded good albeit with slight nuaced differences- only major jumpout was on the acoustic where the warm sounded a little more nasally. I have an old AKG D202es that sounds great on acoustic and was very on par with your D19 here.

theres definitely a difference, I'm not sure if its that much of a difference though. I think I still lean AKG for the smoothness. Good shoot out!

Another great & detailed demo Clay. I thought the warm mic sounded hollow in the mids in comparison with the richer & smoother D19s… what did you think? Wonder how a sm57 compares?

Thank you for the video, I waited for this comparison! They do sound very close. Not identical, but still pretty decent mics for 200$.

Thanks for taking the time to make this Clay! I just purchased a vintage d19 and it arrived broken. The thing looked stunning but was useless. This might be one of the few instances where Warm's "close enough" mentality really is just that. That said, I've sold the handful of stuff I've bought from that company. None of it sounded great imo, and none of it came close to the real deal. But it makes sense that they'd be able to make a decent dynamic mic.

The only major differences I’m noticing is on the brass snare and the acoustic guitar and I don’t see myself using either on a snare or an acoustic anyway. Great vid.

I bought a pair of these when they first dropped. I intended to use them for recording myself, but I run live sound regularly and have been throwing them on different sources starting with drum OH’s and was surprised by how usable they were. On snare it wasn’t that different than a 421, but better than a 57. On a tube amp I liked it much better than a Beta57 and the Sennheiser e906. I prefer the Beyerdynamic M69TG for the same price for amps. I have an AKG d224 and I much prefer that on most sources to these mics, but like the D19’s it is nearly twice the price. In the end I’d recommend it to someone wanting to branch out from an SM57 or e609, who still wants a warranty and peace of mind that it will work for a while. Ina few years we should see a ton of these on the used market and at $120 they’d be really great.

Thanks for this video. I was shocked at how different they sound. Then I realized that the Warm sounds better, so kudos to them. The vintage mics sounded warm which was nice, but had a ringing that I couldn't ignore. If they're all like that, then I'd take the Warm any day.

I must say the times the D19 sounded different (most of times), I prefered the D19. I think on toms they were pretty similar. Thanks for the comparison!

Hey now! Cool Stealie ⚡️⚡️⚡️

Good stuff Clay! 😉👍 I always appreciate a/b comparisons with classic gear and their modern more affordable recreations. For the price, regardless of how close they come to the originals, Bryce's gear is a very solid QPR. Your point of what would 60yr old D19's sound when they were new is very relevant. On close toms I really had to concentrate to hear a difference, and it wasn't really appreciable imho. On darker muted toms there's no reason to put up your fragile originals. The WA's were very nice!. On cymbals and snare the difference was pretty obvious. I prefer the originals, but, in the context of a full mix would the WA's work just as well?. I think so.....they might sound like what the originals would sound like after EQ'ing ?. On gtr and piano I think they just sounded different. Whether the WA's or D19's sounded better is a matter of taste and context. They each brought out something different in those instruments. I liked both. I think the more forward upper-mid of the WA's will require less Eq in a full dense mix. I've never had the opportunity to use old D19s. Like everyone I know 57s and 421s pretty well, so the WA could be a nice change of color. For $200 it's a good buy 👍

sounded more different than i was expecting actually. still gonna buy a pair cuz i hate 57's and use 635a's a lot (but theyre omni) so this will fill some gaps for me. also how often do u see a 200dollar mic now? i dont own any warm stuff

Wanted to say hi! Cheers!!

I like the WAs a lot on drums. Some subtle differences, some more pronounced, but most of it won't matter in a mix. The guitar was nice. I think the WA actually sounds better in a solo context, the accent notes were more pronounced and the high mids were more in your face. In a full arrangement, the D19 sounds easier to work with. The only place I wasn’t huge on the WA was the piano. It lacked attack and just kinda sounded washy and pad like. Cool for a vibe, but not what I look for in traditional piano sounds. But with a little dynamic eq, it could probably get there.

Really well constructed video! Definitely a bit more presence on the WA-19s, but as you say, did the D19s sound different when new. Did you find that the presence could be tamed easily?

I agree with Clay, regardless of how close they are to vintage AKG’s, I think they are an awesome alternative to the typical 57s etc. I think these may end up being awesome mics for live sound as well…

Great video, thanks for doing this. And I must agree that the Warm sounds plasticy in comparison, on pretty much every take here. I really wanted to like it, but everything between 500 and 2k seems screwed. The leaner bass response would have been fine with me, but the mid range is where it's at in my book.

HUGE pass on the warms for me!!! Thanks for making this vid!

they're subtly a bit different but through the UnFairchild either way it sounds lovely! idk why but maybe Warm tried to replicate the curve of a tape machine loool cuz through the 660 it sounds more "vintage-y" to my ears. whatever that means...

In the first toms example, both sound pretty much the same. But as soon as you switch to the "hats and overhead" example, from there on out through the drums examples, there's no low end or presence in the mic whatsoever compared to the AKG. It's as if the polarity got inverted, but that can't be because we're only hearing a single mic source so there's nothing to cancel out, right? Then in the hi hat example, the top end sounds so muffled on the WA-19 compared to the AKG. I'm really confused whats going on lol...

sounded very different when playing minimally, but when you were really going for it most of the meaningful differences disappeared. not surprised that the WA-19s sounded brighter usually since they claimed to be going for a "when they were new" sound, not trying to copy already 60 year old mics. even so i dont think it would take a lot of work to make the WA sound like the AKGs. they have a very similar character despite the differences

The WA-19 sounded very different - especially on hihat and cymbals - but not necessarily better...the akg feels more balanced and round. Considering the differences - even through my laptop speakers, I wonder if there are cheaper alternatives out there doing a similar thing without the 60s eyecandy and therefore mojo pricepoint...

I might be going mad, but does anyone feel like the saturation is vastly different?! It sounds like the WA19 have more sustain to them and you can hear this especially on the piano and acoustic, would make sense to why the hi hat sounds closer on the snare mic. I’m gonna pick one up now. Drum OH here we come. Thanks for the video.

Well they sound great both, but different. Also, don't know if it was because of the extra top end or mic placement, but the akg seemed to reject a lot more of the hihat

I’m wondering if you eq matched the tracks how close they would be. They have different frequency response curves.

Both ❤

pretty good. The vintage sounded better on snare, I could hear a little pinch in the mid range from the WA but that could just be slight placement differences. In a mix, no one would really be able to tell and if they could, they think too hard about stuff like vintage microphones.

The WA's aren't bad, per say, but they are significantly brighter and the low mids are less detailed and full. I really dislike the trend of modern mics sounding so bright and thin out of the box. I prefer something a bit darker with detailed mids that will take high end EQ really well. In my experience, it is easier to add good high end with an EQ, than to take away too much that is baked into the sound. I wish they sounded more like the vintage ones, because I feel like 3 db on a shelf at 5 or 10 khz would match the old to new in a general way, and I hypothesise it would sound better on drum OH, piano, and snare, but when untouched, gives a better guitar and tom sound imo

Awesome! Could you pls share where you get those drum mufflers from?

Is there any improvement on battery for the watch 7?

Relatively affordable, too. Shame they dont come in sets of 3 for the toms.

WA -19 is very mid heavy on piano. Also sounds like the WA-19 has a looser pickup pattern. Interesting.

Any group coming through Boulevard Recording would be crazy not to use this setup on drums. You're already 90 percent there in terms of "getting a sound" for a bitchen record. Maybe also try some of the tube preamps on-site; could mix it up from song to song between console preamps and the REDDs, etc., or mix and match. Indeed. There's a reason Emerick - after hearing drums summed mono through a 660 - never again thought of trying any other signal chain.

It definitely sounded like the high-pass filter was engaged on the WA-19 in a couple of the examples because the difference was drastic.

A lot less low end on the wa19's will do better in a home studio

If you’re going for the vintage sound, I would say buy one or ever how many do you need but if you want better sound for half the money just get a SM 57 you will be much happier

The D19 has a sort of ‘focus’ particularly on snare, that the WA does not have.

Warm WA-19 has more lower midrange and a bit less treble

Quite a difference on piano.

Those hi hats sounds TERRRRIFIC..... 🤑

Vastly prefer the vintage ones here. The Warm aren’t bad, but I really don’t think they sound anything like the original.

Imo The mics are to far spaced apart to make a fair camparingson when close micing. For sample the hihat one mic was pointed more on the bel and one on the rim

they sound a bit mid scooped

Not really enjoying the midrange character of the Warm. Seems pretty far off from the AKG. Most apparent in the drum OH/hat example.

There is a huge difference here . I don’t know what everyone else is monitoring on (Me: Genelec 8050 thru Neve console)….the bottom end difference is more. Ppprofound. Than the top end. The Warm just sounds cheap. Like Al of ther crap.

akg = more low end and clarity

the D19's sound better... and the difference isn't small...

Not afraid to say it, I liked your D19's better.

Slightly disappointing. The D19s sounded much smoother-in solo. I wonder how they would each hold their own in a mix. Again, what did a new D19 sound like back in the day, too? I’m sure you could get the WA19s extremely close with some EQ, but that kind of defeats the point. At the same time though, most sources eventually find some EQ applied during production anyway, so… It’s a toss-up. Definitely thought the AKGs sounded better solo.

wa is duller and slower sounding IMO

Wow the AKG IS BETTER

The only thing that is similar is the look…

Not the same unfortunately.

All I hear is a thin harshness...I think the WA19 sound crap...If this mic was released, not in the guise of a studio classic...I very much doubt they would be a big seller...But hey what do I know...

why does all vintage gear have more body