AEA Offers Recreation of RCA 44 Ribbon Microphone

Expanding its offerings to the professional recording market, Transamerica AG has signed on to distribute AEA's (Audio Engineering Associates) R44 Studio Ribbon Microphone. The handmade R44 is very close to a "re-issue" of its namesake, the venerated RCA 44 Ribbon Microphone that defined "High Fidelity" in the 1930s.

Wes Dooley, president of AEA, has long been the insider's source of ribbon microphones and classic ribbon microphone repair. In the process they've become intimately acquainted with the subtleties of ribbon mics of all types, and witness to the dwindling supply of the most important ribbon mic of all time, the RCA 44. Dooley felt it was time to return this one of a kind microphone to prominence in the studio. To accomplish this, he undertook a multi-year quest to track down the people and their secrets that were behind the original RCA 44. Today AEA produces the R44 by hand in their shop in California, and seeks to offer studios what was impossible only a few years ago - delivery of a microphone that possesses every strength of a 1936 RCA 44 without its weaknesses.

"AEA's R44 is a one-of-a-kind microphone," observed Lunde, president of AEA's distributor Transamerica Audio Group, "and studio engineers have been rediscovering a ribbon's virtues. AEA's R44 is so good, it exceeds expectations for a ribbon mic, even to those who own original RCA 44's. Every detail has been nailed down. The RCA 44 has the same ribbon material RCA used in the original version. AEA and the R44 are a perfect fit with Transamerica AG's mission to find the best quality gear available - gear built with a passion and personal commitment, and then bring that gear to the national marketplace."