i dont have any noise from street, animals, computers etc. at all. i have borought the 103 a while ago and was very happy with it. i read a lot about the 414 and the multi patterns sound interesting to me as i can also use it for other stuff.
in my studio i have the töm 49 and i am very happy with that vintage aound for singing. the 103 or the 414 i would need for corporate work. still not sure if i really want that kind of vintage toning in the voice. since the room is not treated at the moment i tend more to the 414.
C214. Its literary the same capsule as one half of the CK12 but with a few microns of teflon heated onto the backplate. virtually there is a littlebit of additional capacitance because of that, which increases nonlinearity by a unperceptable amount. But thats nothing compared to the C414 where the two capsules are in parallel, so one acts as a capacitive pad for the other, which increases distortion by a lot. I am a strong believer that the C214 is actually a superior mic compared to the C414 XLS and XLII.
And because the C114 and C104 circuits are vastly superior compared to the C214 in dynamic range (132dB in the case of the C114), the ultimate CK12 style microphone would be the C104 with a C214 capsule.
Gras makes high-end measurement microphones and they only make electrets. And boy, their linearity is extremely good.
As someone who owns both the c214 and the c414 xls and has used them both extensively, I massively prefer the c414xls. The c214 is so bright that it is unusable on some sources. I rarely use the c214.
Bino5150
